MAY  2  1918 


BV  5082  .A4  1918 
Addison,  Charles  Morris, 

1856-1947. 
The  theory  and  practice  of 

mysticism 


THE  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 
OF  MYSTICISM 


THE 
THEORY  AND  PRACTIC| ..  p,^^^^ 
OF  MYSTICISM  ^^' 

MAY   2  1918 
CHARLES  MORRIS  ADDISON,  D.D. 

RECTOR  OF  ST.  JOHN'S   CHURCH, 
STAMFORD,  CONN. 


NEW  YORK 

E.  P.  DUTTON  y  COMPANY 

681    FIFTH    AVENUE 


COPYEIGHT,  191 8, 

Bv  E,  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 


Printed  in  the  antted  States  of  Hmertea 


TO 

JOHN  WALLACE  SUTER 

WITH   WHOM   I   HAVE   SOUGHT   FOR   GOD 


PREFACE 

The  lectures  which  form  the  substance  of 
this  volume  were  written  at  the  request  of  the 
Faculty  of  the  Episcopal  Theological  School  in 
Cambridge  and  were  delivered  there  in  May, 
19 1 5.  They  were  given  also,  in  November  of 
the  same  year,  at  the  Theological  Department 
of  the  University  of  the  South,  Sewanee,  Ten- 
nessee. They  were  not  written  for  publica- 
tion but  for  intimate  conferences  with  younger 
ministers  and  young  men  studying  for  the  min- 
istry. This  will  explain  their  familiar  char- 
acter. 

I  was  speaking  to  friends  whom  I  wished  to 
interest  in  Mysticism,  to  get  them  to  study  it 
and  to  practise  it,  because  of  its  growing 
importance  in  and  for  the  life  of  to-day. 
They  did  not  think  Mysticism  had  any  mes- 
sage for  them  or  for  their  people.  They 
thought  it  was  a  curious  abnormality  in  the  re- 
ligious life  of  the  past.  So  had  I  once  thought. 
But  I  have  been  led  by  so  many  unlooked-for 


▼iii  Preface 

and  gracious  openings  to  feel  differently  and 
to  gain  so  much,  that  I  felt  drawn  to  get  others 
to  start  on  the  same  path  and  to  outgo  me.  For 
if  the  Way  was  open  to  me,  surely  any  other 
man,  minister  or  layman  can  walk  in  it. 

So  I  wrote  out  of  my  own  heart  and  the 
lectures  came  out  more  like  sermons  than  es- 
says, because  I  was  a  missionary  and  not  a 
professor. 

In  conclusion,  I  wish  to  express  my  thanks 
to  Messrs.  Burns  and  Oates  for  permission  to 
quote  from  their  edition  of  Francis  Thompson's 
poems;  to  the  Macmillan  Company  for  their 
permission  to  give  extracts  from  their  editions 
of  Tennyson  and  Matthew  Arnold,  and  also  to 
the  Houghton  Mifflin  Company  for  similar 
privileges  in  connection  with  the  works  of 
Lowell. 

C.  M.  A. 


CONTENTS 

I.    The  Longing  for  God  and  Its  Implica- 
tions   3 

II.    The  Way  Toward  God 39 

III.  The  Meeting  Point 74 

IV.  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  Heinrich  Suso  and 

Mother  Julian  of  Norwich      .     .     .106 

V.    Modern  Mysticism 149 

VI.    Practical  Mysticism 183 


THE  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE 
OF  MYSTICISM 


THE  THEORY  AND 
PRACTICE  OF  MYSTICISM 


THE  LONGING  FOR  GOD  AND  ITS  IMPLICATIONS 

These  lectures  are  concerned  with  the  the- 
ory of  Mysticism  only  as  that  may  be  of  use  in 
learning  how  to  practise  it.  What  we  are,  I 
hope,  to  be  interested  in,  is  Mysticism  as  an 
Art.  There  has  of  late  been  much  careful 
study  of  Mysticism  as  a  Science,  to  understand 
its  philosophical  and  theological  assumptions 
and  its  psychological  methods.  Du  Prel  and 
Recejac  and  James  and  others  have  made  much 
clearer  ''the  bases  of  the  mystic  knowledge," 
but  their  discussions  are  mainly  academic. 
They  are  tremendously  interesting,  but  they 
tend  rather  to  make  more  intelligent  the  criti- 
cism of  Mysticism  than  to  make  more  Mystics. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  are  many  little  hand- 

3 


4        The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

books,  whose  authors  and  titles  I  need  not  men- 
tion, which  offer  you  short  and  easy  paths  to 
the  practice  of  Mysticism,  which  are  founded 
(some  of  them)  upon  very  distorted  views  of 
psychology,  upon  very  weak  philosophical  pre- 
suppositions, and  with  theological  ideas  widely 
at  variance  with  the  truths  of  Christianity, 
most  of  them  having  more  interest  in  the  body 
than  in  the  soul. 

I  should  like  to  mediate  between  these  two 
extremes.  I  should  like  to  make  use  of  the 
studies  of  others,  and  try  to  show  how  the  the- 
ories they  have  set  forth  may  be  applied  to  the 
actual  practice  of  Mysticism,  and  by  making 
my  practical  suggestions  depend  upon  scientific 
foundations,  give  the  art  of  being  a  Mystic  a 
firmer  basis  than  is  afforded  by  the  little  tract, 
*'How  to  Wake  the  Solar  Plexus." 

Too  long  has  Mysticism  been  regarded  as  a 
peculiar  thing,  attributed  to  a  few  peculiar  peo- 
ple : — a  mental  aberration,  a  theological  heresy, 
an  ascetic  life.  All  these,  and  more,  have  been 
at  times  attached  to  it ;  but  the  thing  itself  per- 
sists. And  my  aim  is  to  get  at  the  thing  itself, 
to  seek  its  foundation  in  our  common  human 
nature,  to  show  the  implications  contained  in 
it,  and  having  discovered  its  essence,  to  explain 


The  Longing  for  God  and  Its  Implications       5 

its  method,  show  how  the  art  is  to  be  practised 
and  so  make  it  useful  in  our  lives  and  in  the 
lives  of  those  to  whom  we  are  called  to  min- 
ister. 

Mysticism  is  founded  on  man's  conscious 
need  of  communion  with  God,  as  painting  and 
sculpture  are  founded  on  man's  craving  for 
beauty.  Everything  else  in  Mysticism  grows 
out  of  this.  It  is  the  art  which  some  men 
have  developed  to  satisfy  this  need.  In  this 
lecture  I  purpose  to  speak  of  this  longing,  and 
of  certain  implications  contained  in  it,  not  to 
prove  any  of  them,  but  assuming  them  exactly 
as  Mysticism  does,  to  proceed  to  build  our 
study  on  them.  Only  so  shall  we  be  kept  from 
drifting  into  side  issues  and  non-essentials,  and 
be  guided  by  this  golden  thread  through  the 
psychological  intricacies,  the  individual  idio- 
syncrasies and  the  theological  vagaries  which 
lie  in  wait  for  the  student  of  Mysticism.  Such 
a  course  will  also  help  us  to  understand  the 
common  feeling  which  binds  us  to  the  Mystics, 
and  will  show  us  how  practical  and  modern  a 
thing  is  Mysticism. 

I  say  that  the  cause  of  Mysticism  is  man's 
conscious  need  of  God.  This  makes  a  very 
broad  foundation,  as  broad  as  religion  itself, 


6        The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

for  Mysticism  is  only  one  form  of  religion. 
There  is  a  longing  in  the  human  heart  for  God, 
universal  and  inextinguishable,  a  longing  so 
deep  and  so  intense  that  it  was  well  called  by 
one  who  knew  the  dryness  of  the  Syrian  desert 
the  "thirst"  of  the  soul  for  the  living  God.  It 
may  not  always  be  acknowledged,  it  may  not 
even  be  clearly  known,  but  it  is  there  in  every 
heart.  The  savage  with  his  crude  rites  and 
cruel  sacrifices,  his  fetishes  and  medicine  men, 
may  not  clearly  formulate  his  want,  but  we 
know  that  all  he  does  comes  from  the  outreach 
of  his  soul  towards  something  not  himself, 
which  his  felt  want  leads  him  to  believe  is  ob- 
tainable. Just  what  the  want  is,  or  whence 
the  satisfaction  is  to  come,  he  does  not  know. 

The  Old  Testament  is  called  the  Book  of 
Promise.  If  there  were  no  unsatisfied  desires 
in  the  religious  life  there  would  be  nothing  to 
promise ;  but  the  Jews  looked  forward,  yearned 
and  strained  their  eyes.  They  are  the  people 
of  a  still  unfulfilled  prophecy.  Their  book  is 
an  unfinished  torso, — it  breaks  ofif  in  the  mid- 
dle of  a  sentence.  All  the  way  through,  the 
thirst  for  a  Saviour  is  the  most  prominent 
characteristic  of  their  Book.  All  the  way  from 
Adam  and  Eve,  with  the  promise  of  a  Seed 


The  Longing  for  God  and  Its  Implications      7 

which  should  deliver  their  posterity  from  the 
curse  of  their  sin,  down  to  that  last  Old  Testa- 
ment character,  John  the  Baptist,  with  his  anx- 
ious question :  "Art  thou  he  that  should  come 
or  look  we  for  another?"  always  there  is  the 
constant  onlooking  expectation  and  desire. 

The  whole  drama  of  the  life  of  Job  is  the  de- 
lineation of  his  strugg^le  to  find  and  reach  God, 
and  so  learn  why  all  his  troubles  had  come 
upon  him:  "Even  to-day  is  my  complaint  bit- 
ter, my  stroke  is  heavier  than  my  groaning. 
Oh,  that  I  knew  where  I  might  find  him,  that  I 
might  come  even  to  his  seat."  ^ 

The  Psalms,  deepest  expressions  of  the  re- 
ligious life,  are  full  of  these  longings:  "As 
the  hart  panteth  after  the  water  brooks,  so 
panteth  my  soul  after  thee,  O  God;  my  soul 
thirsteth  for  God,  for  the  living  God.  When 
shall  I  come  and  appear  before  God?"  ^ 

"O  God,  thou  art  my  God;  earnestly  will  I 
seek  thee ;  my  soul  thirsteth  for  thee,  my  flesh 
longeth  for  thee,  in  a  dry  and  weary  land  where 
no  water  is."  ^ 

"Seek  ye  the  Lord  while  he  may  be  found; 
call  ye  upon  him  while  he  is  near."  * 

*  Job  23 :2,  3.  •  Psalm  63  :i. 

•  Psalm  42  :i,  2.  *  Isaiah  55:6. 


8        The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

And  remember  Philip's  question:  "Lord, 
show  us  the  Father,  and  it  sufficeth  us";  and 
the  altar  to  the  Unknown  God,  which  was  but 
the  visible  expression  of  a  desire  to  reach  the 
ultimate  Zeus,  whoever  he  might  be. 

The  same  longing  persists.  It  is  about  us 
to-day.  It  is  felt  by  many  men  of  science,  by 
physicians  and  philosophers  and  poets.  The 
cases  are  almost  as  well  known  as  the  texts  I 
have  quoted. 

There  is  Darwin,  who  lost  not  only  God  but 
the  very  enjoyment  of  poetry  and  music  out  of 
his  life,  and  who  knew  his  loss  and  deplored 
it.  There  are  few  things  more  pathetic  than 
the  awful  void  made,  in  the  lives  of  such  men 
as  he  and  Kingdon  Clifford  and  George  Ro- 
manes, by  a  wrong  idea  of  the  nature  of  the 
proof  required  before  a  man  could  find  God. 
The  latter  said,  before  he  found  the  way  (and 
his  words  remind  us  of  Job's,  with  all  their 
sublime  trust  left  out)  :  "When  at  times  I 
think,  as  think  at  times  I  must,  of  the  appalling 
contrast  between  the  hallowed  glory  of  that 
creed  which  was  once  mine  and  the  lonely  mys- 
tery of  existence  as  now  I  find  it; — at  such 
times  I  shall  ever  feel  it  impossible  to  avoid 


The  Longing  for  God  and  Its  Implications      9 

the  sharpest  pang  of  which  my  nature  is  sus- 
ceptible." ^ 

For  such  men  a  glory  has  departed,  and  they 
know  it  is  gone,  and  they  miss  it  and  seek  to 
regain  it.  It  is  a  common  condition  in  these 
days  among  many  men.  They  may  not  re- 
peat the  world-old  cry  of  Job:  *'0h,  that  I 
knew  where  I  might  find  him";  they  may  veil 
it  in  the  garb  of  scientific  research  or  in  the 
imagery  of  the  poet.  But  the  question  is  there. 
Few  have  voiced  it  better  than  Matthew  Ar- 
nold, the  poet  of  aloofness,  of  a  longing  which 
just  missed  connection  with  its  object: 

"Yes,  in  the  sea  of  life  enisled, 

With  echoing^  straits  between  us  thrown, 
Dotting  tlie  shoreless,  watery  wild, 
We  mortal  millions  live  alone." 

Again : 

"We  but  dream  we  have  our  wish'd  for  powers, 

Ends  we  seek,  we  never  shall  attain. 
Ah !  some  power  exists  there  which  is  ours  ? 
Some  end  is  there  we  indeed  may  gain  ?" 

But  the  proof  of  the  longing  of  the  human 
heart  for  God  does  not  depend  only  upon  the 

^  Romanes,  Thoughts  on  Religion,  p.  29. 


lo      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

testimony  of  others.  Our  own  hearts  tell  the 
same  story.  We  have  felt  the  longing.  Some- 
times it  is  weak  and  does  not  trouble  us,  and 
sometimes  it  breaks  out  fiercely  and  will  not 
let  us  alone.  Most  of  the  time  our  spiritual  life 
is  very  lonesome.  It  is  because  there  is  one 
heart  in  all  of  us  and  God  made  it  for  himself, 
and  that  heart  in  each  of  us  is  restless  until  it 
find  rest  in  God. 

Now,  as  I  have  said,  this  unsatisfied  yearn- 
ing is  the  cause,  the  reason,  the  fundamental 
postulate  of  Mysticism.  Man  is  incomplete, 
and  knows  it,  and  will  be  satisfied  with  noth- 
ing less  than  God.  The  Mystics  are  the  people 
who  have  felt  this  want  most  keenly  and  been 
most  desperately  in  earnest  to  satisfy  it.  I 
have  said  that  all  men  feel  it ;  that  the  want  is 
universal;  but  there  are  degrees  of  desire.  I 
think  that  the  only  reason  you  and  I  are  not 
Mystics  is  that  we  do  not  want  God  enough. 
This  means  that  while  all  men  may  be  re- 
ligious, they  are  only  potentially  Mystics.  We 
may  learn  a  lesson  from  the  young  man  in 
Vivekananda's  story  who  thought  he  wanted 
God  more  than  anything,  and  went  to  an  In- 
dian Sage  to  learn  how  to  find  him.  He  re- 
ceived no  answer  to  his  eager  questions  until 


The  Longing  for  God  and  Its  Implications     ii 

he  had  gone  many  times.  Then  the  Sage  rose 
from  his  meditation  and  took  the  young  man 
down  to  the  river  to  bathe  with  him,  and  while 
they  were  in  the  water  the  Sage  suddenly 
grasped  the  young  man  and  held  him  down 
under  the  water  till  he  was  almost  drowned. 
Then  he  released  him.  And  when  the  young 
man  had  recovered  the  Sage  said  to  him: 
"What  did  you  want  most  when  you  were 
under  the  water  ?"  The  young  man  answered, 
"A  breath  of  air."  And  the  Sage  said :  "When 
you  want  God  as  you  wanted  that  breath  of 
air  you  will  find  him." 

As  Emile  Boutroux  says:  "The  starting 
point,  the  first  moment,  is  a  state  of  the  soul 
which  it  is  difficult  to  define,  but  which  is  char- 
acterized well  enough  by  the  German  word 
Sehnsucht.  It  is  a  state  of  desire,  vague  and 
disturbed,  very  real  and  liable  to  be  very  in- 
tense, as  a  passion  of  the  soul ;  very  indetermi- 
nate, or  rather  very  inexplicable,  as  regards 
both  its  object  and  its  cause.  It  is  an  aspiration 
towards  an  unknown  object,  towards  a  good 
which  the  heart  imperatively  demands  and 
which  the  mind  cannot  conceive.  Such  a  state 
may  indeed  be  found  in  men  of  very  different 


12      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

characters,  and  may  have  very  different  de- 
grees of  signification.  In  the  Mystic  it  is  pro- 
found and  lasting;  it  works  in  the  soul,  which 
gradually  forms  for  itself  an  idea  of  the  object 
of  its  aspiration."  ® 

Any  one  who  will  spend  one  hour  with  the 
Mystics  will  need  no  proof  of  this  statement. 
The  longing  breathes  through  their  every  ut- 
terance. Let  me  only  quote  these  passages, 
first  from  the  "Theologia  Germanica,"  and 
then  from  Ruysbroek,  and  lastly  from  the 
old  English  mystic  writing  called  "The  Cloud 
of  Unknowing": 

"Now  mark  how  the  Father  draweth  men  unto 
Christ.  When  somewhat  of  this  Perfect  Good  is  dis- 
covered and  revealed  within  the  soul  of  man,  as  it 
were  in  a  glance  or  flash,  the  soul  conceiveth  a  long- 
ing to  approach  unto  the  Perfect  Goodness,  and  unite 
herself  with  the  Father.  And  the  stronger  this  yearn- 
ing groweth,  the  more  is  revealed  unto  her;  and  the 
more  is  revealed  unto  her,  the  more  is  she  drawn  to- 
ward the  Father,  and  her  desire  quickened.  Thus  is 
the  soul  drawn  and  quickened  into  a  union  with  the 
Eternal  Goodness.  And  this  is  the  drawing  of  the 
Father,  and  thus  the  soul  is  taught  of  Him  who 
draweth  her  unto  Himself,  that  she  cannot  enter  into 
a  union  with  Him  except  she  come  unto  Him  by  the 

'International  Journal  of  Ethics.  January,  1908,  p.  183. 


The  Longing  for  God  and  Its  Implications     13 

life  of  Christ.  Behold!  now  she  puttcth  on  tliat  life 
of  which  I  have  spoken  afore."  ^ 

"Here  there  begins  an  eternal  hunger,  which  shall 
nevermore  be  satisfied.  It  is  the  yearning  and  the 
inward  aspiration  of  our  faculty  of  love,  and  of  our 
created  spirit  towards  an  uncreated  good.  And  as 
the  spirit  desires  joy,  and  is  invited  and  constrained 
by  God  to  partake  of  it,  it  is  always  longing  to  realize 
joy.  Be^old  then  the  beginning  of  an  eternal  aspira- 
tion and  of  eternal  eflForts,  while  our  impotence  is 
likewise  eternal.  These  are  the  poorest  of  all  men, 
for  they  are  eager  and  greedy,  and  they  can  never  be 
satisfied."  * 

"And  if  any  thought  rise  and  will  press  continually 
above  thee  betwixt  thee  and  that  darkness,  and  ask 
thee  saying,  'What  seekest  thou,  and  what  wouldest 
thou  have  ?'  say  thou  that  it  is  God  that  thou  wouldest 
have.  'Him  I  covet,  Him  I  seek,  and  naught  but 
Him.' "  "> 

Now  in  this  sense  of  need  there  are  con- 
tained certain  implications.  Man  is  incomplete 
and  knows  it,  but  he  has  also  a  sense  of  com- 
pleteness. If  he  did  not  he  could  not  know  his 
incompleteness.  The  want  postulates  its  satis- 
faction and  also  its  own  capacity  to  receive  it. 
It  implies,  you  see,  God  and  our  capacity  for 

'  Theologia  Germanica,  Trans,  by  Winkworth :  pp.  201- 
202. 

•Maeterlinck:  Ruysbroek  and  the  Mystics,  pp.  147-148. 
*  The  Cloud  of  Unknowing,  p.  90. 


14      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

God,  and  the  ultimate  possibility  of  our  being 
able  to  get  at  him  in  complete  and  satisfying 
communion.  As  in  geometry,  given  a  certain 
axiom,  certain  deductions  flow  naturally  from 
it,  so  here,  in  our  study  of  Mysticism,  if  this 
longing,  universal  and  in  some  men  intense, 
be  given,  there  follow,  there  are  implied  in  it, 
certain  apparently  necessary  deductions: 

(a)  The  mere  longing  implies  its  satisfac- 
tion. 

(b)  The  mere  longing  implies  a  prior,  if  in- 
complete, possession. 

(c)  There  can  be  no  satisfaction  short  of 
the  Infinite  God. 

(d)  To  obtain  this  satisfaction  there  must 
be  some  essential  relationship  between  God  and 
Man. 

(e)  While  the  priority  must  be  on  the  side 
of  God,  there  must  be  co-operation  by  man, 
i.e.  there  are  practical  means  to  be  used  to 
gain  the  end.    There  is  a  Mystic  Way. 

It  is  only  fair  to  say  at  once  that  I  make 
my  own  these  presuppositions  of  Mysticism. 
We  cannot  understand  it  together  unless  we 
can  meet  it  on  its  own  ground,  and  as  no  Mys- 
tic has  ever  cared  to  prove  the  existence  of 
God,  or  man's  spiritual  relationship  to  him,  or 


The  Longing  for  God  and  Its  Implications     15 

the  possibility  of  intercommunion  with  him, 
so  I  feel  no  need  to  do  more  than  base  this 
study  on  these  as  facts.  I  should  never  get 
to  my  subject  if  I  were  obliged  to  prove  every 
step  leading  to  it.  And  it  is  only  fair  to  add 
that  our  subject  is  not  Mysticism  in  general, 
but  Christian  Mysticism.  It  is  a  large  subject 
as  it  is,  but  the  whole  is  enormous,  for  the 
longing  is  as  wide  as  humanity  and  many  men 
have  tried  to  satisfy  it  in  many  ways.  The 
savage  dimly  gropes,  the  Buddhist  has  his 
Nirvana,  the  Positivist  his  Humanity,  the 
Philosopher  his  Absolute,  even  the  Mystic  his 
Abyss.  But  for  us  we  must  leave  aside  the 
fascinating  field  of  Mysticism  as  it  is  found 
among  non-Christian  systems  of  religion  and 
thought,  and  confine  our  study,  as  our  practice 
must  be  confined,  to  Christian  Mysticism,  and 
assume  at  once  that  the  longing  is  not  for  Nir- 
vana or  the  Unknowable,  but  for  the  Christian 
God. 

With  sublime  confidence  our  Mysticism 
takes  this  God  for  granted.  Jesus  Christ  no 
more  thought  of  proving  the  existence  of  God 
than  you  and  I  would  think  of  stopping  now  to 
prove  the  existence  of  the  atmosphere  in  and 
through  which  we  are  speaking  and  listening 


1 6      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

to  each  other.  Christ  found  God  already  in- 
stalled in  the  heart  of  man,  and  Christ  was  so 
sure,  that  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  argue 
about  the  mere  existence  of  the  Father  in 
whose  Being  and  Love  he  perpetually  rested. 
And  more  than  this :  he  must  have  known,  as 
we  are  slow  to  perceive,  that  God  cannot  be 
proved.  All  the  so-called  proofs  are  only  ex- 
post  facto  reasonings  on  facts  already  given 
by  God,  by  which  the  reasonableness  of  his  ex- 
istence is  demonstrated  after  the  fact  is  already 
known.  The  proofs,  then,  are  merely  his  mani- 
festations, multitudinous  and  manifold,  and 
the  arguments  merely  expositions  of  his  modes 
of  manifestation.^^ 

"  "There  is  no  demonstration  of  the  being  of  God.  In  every 
mode  of  demonstration  whose  object  is  to  arrive  at  it,  it  is 
assumed.  It  can  form  no  term  in  the  formulas  of  logic.  It 
is  not  a  truth  that  is  to  be  counted  among  the  achievements 
of  human  thought.  There  can  be  no  demonstration  of  the 
being  of  God  by  man :  there  may  be  the  manifestation  of 
God  to  man."     [Mulford:  The  Republic  of  God,  p.  5.] 

"Surely,  the  existence  of  God  cannot  be  demonstrated  if  He 
is  the  W^hole,  the  ground  and  content  of  all  demonstration, 
of  all  thought,  even  when  we  try  to  put  Him  far  from  us  as 
the  Unknowable.  The  attempt  to  prove  the  existence  of  God 
would  be  like  endeavoring  to  prove  that  number  exists  by 
the  use  of  certain  numerals,  whereas  number  is  used  in  every 
possible  demonstration :  we  show  its  existence  by  using  it. 
'You  cannot  prove  the  existence  of  a  Deity  by  any  reasoning 
process,   for  there   may   be   nothing  in   a  logical  conclusion 


The  Longing  for  God  and  Its  Implications      17 

The  best  proof  you  can  have  that  God  is,  is 
to  experience  him,  to  feel  him  touch  you,  and 
this  is  what  the  Mystic  has  actually  done.  The 
Mystic  does  not  care  to  know  anything  about 
God ;  he  wants  to  know  God,  and  as  far  as  he 
can,  to  be  "one'd"  in  his  deepest  nature  with 
God. 

(A.)  The  first  inference  we  draw  from  this 
longing  of  man  for  God  is  that  such  longing 
implies  that  there  is  a  satisfaction  prepared 
for  it. 

If,  as  John  Fiske  says,  this  relation  of  long- 
ing between  man  and  the  invisible  world,  which 
is  God,  is  a  relation  of  which  only  the  subjec- 

which  was  not  in  the  premises;  and  if  God  be  in  your 
premises,  you  have  begged  the  question.  If  He  be  not  in 
your  premises,  He  will  not  be  logically  found  in  your  con- 
clusion.'"  [Dresser:  The  Perfect  Whole,  pp.  81-82  (quot- 
ing Van  Norden,  The  Psychic  Factor,  p.  204).] 

"It  is  with  purpose  that  T  use  the  word  assumption.  As  a 
matter  of  history,  tlie  existence  of  a  quasi-human  God  has  al- 
ways been  an  assumption  or  postulate.  It  is  something  which 
men  have  all  along  taken  for  granted.  It  probably  never  oc- 
curred to  any  one  to  try  to  prove  the  existence  of  such  a 
God  until  it  was  doubted,  and  doubts  on  that  subject  are 
very  modern.  Omitting  from  the  account  a  few  score  of  in- 
genious philosophers,  it  may  be  said  that  all  mankind,  the 
wisest  and  the  simplest,  have  taken  for  granted  the  existence 
of  a  Deity,  or  deities  of  a  psychical  nature  more  or  less 
similar  to  that  of  humanity.  Such  a  postulate  has  formed  a 
part  of  all  human  thinking  from  primitive  ages  down  to  the 
present  time."     [Fiske:  Through  Nature  to  Cod,  p.  164.] 


i8      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

tive  term,  Man,  is  real,  and  the  objective  term, 
God,  is  non-existent,  then  it  is  something  utter- 
ly without  precedent  in  the  whole  history  of 
creation.  Nowhere  in  Nature  do  we  find  such 
maladjustment  to  environment.  Nowhere  do 
we  find  the  implantation  of  a  desire  which  has 
not  somewhere  provided  for  it  its  complete 
satisfaction.  The  longing  of  the  duck  for  the 
water,  of  the  eagle  for  his  mountain,  of  the 
moose  for  his  mate, — nay,  even  so  low  as  that 
of  the  ass  for  his  master's  crib, — all  are  proofs 
that  somewhere  is  water,  and  crag,  and  mate, 
and  food,  for  every  thirst  has  its  drink,  and 
to  thirst  is  to  postulate  the  drink.  Therefore 
every  longing  is  a  prophecy  and  a  proof  of 
satisfaction  provided  somewhere,  somehow, 
some  time.  The  universal  healthy  longing  for 
God  is  a  proof  that  there  is  a  God,  and  a  proph- 
ecy that  he  shall  be  found.  I  say  this  with  all 
positiveness ;  nay,  more : 

"The  thing  we  long  for,  that  we  are 
For  one  transcendant  moment."  ^^ 

""Wants  are  the  bands  and  cements  between  God  and  us. 
Had  we  not  wanted,  we  never  could  have  been  obliged. 
Whereas  now  we  are  infinitely  obliged,  because  we  want  in- 
finitely. From  Eternity  it  was  requisite  that  we  should  want. 
We  could  never  else  have  enjoyed  anything:  Our  own  wants 
are  treasures.    And  if  want  be  a  treasure,  sure  everything  is 


The  Longing  for  God  and  Its  Implications     19 

Everywhere  in  this  Hfe  satisfaction  means 
stagnation,  and  stagnation  means  death.  "In 
the  physical  world  hunger  is  a  mark  of  health 
and  the  want  of  appetite  proclaims  disease.  So 
the  mind  grows  through  the  longing  to  know." 
And  so  the  spirit  is  dead  if  it  has  no  longing. 

so.  Wants  are  the  ligatures  between  God  and  us,  the  sinews 
that  convey  Senses  from  Him  into  us.  whereby  we  live  in 
Him,  and  feel  His  enjoyments.  For  had  we  not  been  obliged 
by  having  our  wants  satisfied,  we  should  not  have  been 
created  to  love  Him.  And  had  we  not  been  created  to  love 
Him,  we  could  never  have  enjoyed  His  eternal  Blessedness." 
[Traherne:    Centuries  of  Meditations,  pp.  34-35-1 

"In  accord  with  this  conjecture  as  to  the  position  of  re- 
ligious truth,  namely,  that  it  is  determined  by  the  movement 
of  will-to-believe,  is  an  old  observation  of  religious  ex- 
perience. It  is  written  that  he  who  seeks  finds :  the  connec- 
tion between  seeking  and  finding  is  infallible.  Such  infallible 
connection  may  be  many-wise  understood,  but  it  may  be  thus 
understood,  that  the  seeking  brings  the  finding  with  it. 
'Thou  wouldst  not  seek  me  hadst  thou  not  already  found  me.' 
said  Pascal,  and  to  Sabatier  this  thought  came  'like  a  flash  of 
light  .  .  .  the  solution  of  a  problem  that  had  long  appeared 
insoluble.'  The  religiousness  of  man's  nature  is  the  whole 
substance  of  his  revelation.  Whatever  we  impute  to  the  world 
comes  back  to  us  as  a  quality  pre-resident  there — is  this  not 
the  whole  illusion  of  reality?  Impute  then  to  the  world  a 
living  beneficence:  the  world  will  not  reject  this  imputation, 
will  be  even  as  you  have  willed  it.  Your  belief  becomes  (as 
Fichte  held)  an  evidence  of  your  character — not  of  your 
learning.  He  who  waits  his  assent  till  God  is  proved  to  him, 
will  never  find  Him.  But  he  who  seeks  finds — has  already 
found."  [Hocking;  The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Experi- 
ence, p.  147.] 


20       The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

It  is  the  mood  of  hope,  the  only  hopeful  sign, 
this  intense  desire  to  know  more  of  God,  more 
of  his  life,  of  his  holiness,  of  his  power,  for 
ever  closer  communion  with  him,  for  more  of 
the  divine  likeness  in  the  soul.  "I  am  come 
that  they  may  have  life,  and  that  they  may 
have  it  more  abundantly."  And  St.  Paul  said: 
"Brethren,  I  count  not  myself  to  have  appre- 
hended, but  I  press  on,"  and  wherever  we  see 
him  after  that,  on  whatever  radiant  height  he 
may  be,  he  is  still  pressing  on  with  unsatisfied 
longings  and  quenchless  ardor  towards  loftier 
summits,  crying  ever  for  more  intimate  knowl- 
edge of  Christ  and  more  and  more  of  the  ful- 
ness of  God. 

(B.)  Next,  this  longing  not  only  implies  a 
satisfaction  to  be  provided  in  the  future,  but 
also  a  present,  though  not  yet  understood,  par- 
tial possession. 

There  must  be  something  of  the  Infinite  in 
us  or  we  could  not  know  enough  about  it  to 
long  for  it.  ''He  hath  set  Eternity  in  their 
heart."  ^^  As  Augustine  says,  speaking  from 
God's  side,  'In  that  thou  hast  sought  me,  thou 
hast  already  found  me."  The  Mystics  them- 
selves realize  this.    They  are  seeking  a  Pres- 

"Eccles.  3:11. 


The  Longing  for  God  and  Its  Implications     21 

ence  which  is  already  within  them.  Hear  St. 
Bernard  in  his  Homilies  on  the  "Song  of 
Songs" : 

"I  sought  after  Him  whom  my  soul  was  de- 
sirous to  love;  for  it  was  not  then  able  to  love 
One  whom  it  had  not  yet  found,  or,  at  least  it 
loved  Him  less  than  it  wished  to  do,  and  on  that 
account  was  seeking  Him  that  it  might  love 
Him  with  an  increased  affection,  though  as- 
suredly it  would  not  have  sought  Him  without 
having  some  degree  of  love  for  Him  pre- 
viously." ^* 

And  in  the  most  beautiful  language  Mother 
Juliana  of  Norwich  expresses  the  same  idea: 

"For  I  saw  him  and  sought  him :  for  we  be 
now  so  blind  and  so  unwise,  that  we  can  never 
seek  God  until  what  time  that  he  of  his  good- 
ness sheweth  him  to  us.  And  when  we  see 
ought  of  him  graciously,  then  are  we  stirred  by 
the  same  grace,  to  seek  with  great  desire  to  see 
him  more  blessedfully.  And  thus  I  saw  him 
and  sought  him,  and  I  had  him  and  wanted 
him:  and  this  is  and  should  be  our  common 
working  in  this  life,  as  to  my  sight."  ^* 

And  it  is  not  so  far  a  cry  as  it  seems  to 

*•  St.  Bernard :  Song  of  Songs,  p.  35. 

"Mother  Juliana:  Revelations  of  Divine  Love,  p.  28. 


22      The  Theory  and  Practice  o£  Mysticism 

our  own  day  and  our  own  Royce,  who  says: 
"It  is  this  homing  instinct  that  we  for  the 
first  merely  articulate  when  we  talk  of  true 
Being.  Being  means  something  for  us,  how- 
ever, because  of  the  positive  presence  and  finite 
consciousness  of  this  inner  meaning  of  even 
our  poorest  ideas.  We  seek.  That  is  a  fact. 
We  seek  a  city  still  out  of  sight.  In  the  con- 
trast with  this  goal  we  live.  But  if  this  be  so, 
then  already  we  actually  possess  something  of 
Being  even  in  our  finite  seeking ;  for  the  readi- 
ness to  seek  is  already  something  of  an  at- 
tainment, even  if  a  poor  one."  ^^ 

The  atmosphere  is  before  the  lungs,  the 
mother's  love  before  the  child's.  And  so  when 
you  and  I  stretch  out  our  hands  for  holiness 
we  are  seeking  something  which,  in  a  very 
small  measure,  we  have  already,  or  we  could 
not  know  how  to  long  for  it.  When  we  cry 
out  for  the  living  God,  we  are  crying  for  some- 
thing of  which  we  have  just  caught  a  glimpse. 
The  search  for  God  really  follows  the  finding 
of  us  by  God.  It  is  the  result  of  his  prior, 
seeking  love.  It  is  because  he  has  suggested 
himself  to  us  that  we  immediately  realize  our 
need  and  crave  its  satisfaction. 

**  Royce :  The  World  and  the  Individual,  Vol.  I,  p.  i8i. 


The  Longing  for  God  and  Its  Implications     23 

(C.)  Having  this  glimpse  of  the  Infinite 
God,  the  longing  for  him  cannot  be  satisfied 
with  anything  less  than  the  Infinite.  No  demi- 
gods will  do.  "I  desire  not  that  which  comes 
forth  from  thee,  but  only  I  desire  Thee,  O 
sweetest  love."  ^^ 

"Alas,  my  Lord  God,  what  is  al  Thou  canst 
give  to  a  loving  soul  which  sigheth  and  panteth 
for  Thee  alone,  and  esteemeth  al  things  as  dung 
that  she  may  gain  Thee?  What  is  al,  I  say, 
whilst  Thou  givest  not  Thyself,  but  art  that 
one  thing  which  is  only  necessary  and  which 
alone  can  satisfy  our  souls?  Was  it  any  com- 
fort to  Mary  Magdalene,  when  she  sought 
Thee,  to  find  two  angels  which  presented  them- 
selves instead  of  Thee?  Verily,  I  cannot  think 
it  was  any  joy  unto  her.  For  that  soul  that 
hath  set  her  whole  love  and  desire  on  Thee  can 
never  find  any  true  satisfaction  but  only  in 
Thee." '' 

As  the  poet  Faber  says : 

"O  majesty  unspeakable  and  dread! 
Wert  thou  less  mighty  than  thou  art, 
Thou  wast,  O  Lord,  too  great  for  our  belief. 
Too  little  for  our  heart. 
"Catherine  of  Genoa.     Vita  e  Dottrina,  cap.  VI. 
"  Gertrude  More :  Spiritual  Exercises,  p.  26. 


24       The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

"But  greatness  which  is  infinite  makes  room 

For  all  tilings  in  its  lap  to  lie ; 
We  should  be  crushed  by  a  magnificence 
Short  of  infinity."  ^* 

''Surely  he  that  seeketh  God  perfectly  he 
will  not  rest  him  finally  in  the  remembrance 
of  any  angel  or  saint  that  is  in  Heaven,"  ^■' 

(D.)  And  then  again  this  longing  is  the 
proof  of  our  divinity  and  capacity.  We  could 
not  long  for  anything  if  we  ourselves  had 
reached  finality.  Why  do  we  seek  things  that 
are  not  here?  Why  do  we  not  sing  through 
the  world  as  the  bluebird  sings  through  the 
spring  days?  It  is  because  these  days  are  the 
bird's  all,  and  they  are  not  our  all.  This  world 
is  not  our  whole  environment,  and  so  our  eyes 
are  not  satisfied  with  their  seeing,  nor  our  ears 
with  their  hearing.  Our  intellects  are  not  filled 
with  their  knowledge  nor  our  hearts  with  their 
love, — great,  beautiful  as  these  satisfactions 
are  they  are  not  enough  for  us.  They  do  not 
satisfy.  We  are  greater  than  we  know,  and 
our  qualification  for  being  made  divine  and 
perfect  lies  just  in  this  sense  of  want.  That 
which  makes  us  superior  to  the  beasts  of  the 

"Poems,  p.  20. 

"  The  Cloud  of  UnknoixAng,  p.  io6. 


The  LfOnging  for  God  and  Its  Implications     25 

field  is  just  this  superior  and  superb  insight 
into  our  own  weakness  and  insufficiency.  Some 
day  we  shall  be  satisfied.  And  satisfied  not 
only  because  satisfaction  is  attached  to  long- 
ing, not  only  because  wc  have  a  glimpse  and  a 
little  possession  already,  not  only  because  we 
demand  the  Infinite,  but  because  the  Infinite 
and  the  finite  belong  together.  There  is  a 
real  relationship  which  is  the  cause  of  all  the 
yearning  and  which  makes  the  yearning  mu- 
tual. This  the  Mystic  takes  for  granted  also; 
and  so  we  do.  God  and  Man  belong  together. 
There  is  a  Sonship  in  Humanity  because  there 
is  a  Fatherhood  in  God.  This  makes  every 
good  thing  possible.  I  am  not  arguing  but  only 
illustrating  when  I  (luute:  "" 

Martensen  says,  in  his  Ethics:  "Every  man 
is  infinitely  richer  in  his  being  than  in  his  per- 
formance, is  infinitely  more  than  he  shows  him- 
self or  can  show  himself  to  be."  "^ 

Wendt,  in  "The  Teachings  of  Jesus,"  de- 
clares that :  "God  does  not  become  the  Father, 
but  is  the  Heavenly  Father  even  of  those  who 
become  His  sons."  "" 


Romans  8:10;  II  Cor.  13:5;  Eph.  3:17;  I  John  3:1. 

Christian  Ethics,  Vol.  I,  p.  82. 

The  Teachings  of  Jesus,  Vol.  I,  p.  193. 


26       The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

"What  such  experiences  imply  and  illus- 
trate may  be  more  compactly  stated  in  terms  of 
the  logic  of  communication  as  follows:  In 
order  that  any  two  beings  should  establish 
communication  they  must  already  have  some- 
thing in  common."  ^^ 

"As  every  being  is  capable  of  attracting  its 
like,  and  humanity  is,  in  a  way,  like  God,  as 
bearing  within  itself  some  resemblance  to  its 
Prototype,  the  soul  is  by  a  strict  necessity  at- 
tracted to  the  kindred  Deity.  In  fact,  what 
belongs  to  God  must,  by  all  means  and  at  any 
cost,  be  preserved  for  Him."  ^^ 

"For  nothing  can  have  any  longing  desire 
but  after  its  own  likeness,  nor  could  anything 
be  made  to  desire  God,  but  that  which  came 
from  Him  and  had  the  nature  of  Him."  ^^ 

"The  Word  became  flesh  that  He  might 
make  man  capable  of  receiving  Divinity."  "^ 

(E.)  And  lastly:  Men  have  not  lost  God. 
They  have  only  lost  the  way  to  God.  God  needs 
to  be  made  real  and  present  before  men  can  be 

*"  Hocking :  The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Experience, 
p.  272. 

"  Gregory  of  Nyssa :  The  Soul  and  the  Resurrection,  quoted 
in  Jones'  Studies  in  Mystical  Religion,  p.  85. 

*'  William  Law,  The  Spirit  of  Love. 

"  Athanasius  :    Contra  Ar.  II,  p.  59. 


The  Longing  for  God  and  Its  Implications     37 

satisfied.  They  must  exchange  their  ideas 
about  God  for  a  constant  feeling  of  his  pres- 
ence. In  some  way  they  must  be  made  aware 
of  him.  This  is  what  Mysticism  undertakes  to 
do.  It  is  not  vaL^ue,  but  immediately  and  in- 
tensely practical.  The  need  is  real  and  nothing 
but  reality  will  satisfy  it.  It  is  an  Art  to  be 
practised  rather  than  a  Science  to  be  reasoned 
out.  It  considers  that  the  academic  question, 
"Is  there  a  God  ?"  is  best  answered  by  showing 
the  way  to  him,  by  obtaining  a  personal  con- 
viction of  his  presence.  And  so  the  Mystic's 
question  is  a  personal  one:  "Where  is  God 
and  how  may  I  find  him?"  Therefore  there  is 
a  Mystic  way.  Men  must  understand  the  path 
or  the  process  or  the  rules — call  it  what  you 
will — which  will  help  them  to  get  into  com- 
munion with  God.  The  trouble  with  most  of 
us  is  that  we  have  not  yet  made  this  connec- 
tion, either  from  lack  of  desire  or  from  lack  of 
knowledge  of  the  way.  Our  souls  have  not  yet 
thrilled  at  the  touch  of  God.  Such  a  touch  is 
not  a  casual  happening,  a  matter  of  luck,  or 
even  of  temperament.  It  is  real,  and  the  real 
in  us  must  be  developed  until  like  meets  like. 
Cor  ad  cor  loquitur,  and  we  know  even  as  we 
are  known.    The  process  is  called  the  Mystic 


28       The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

Way,  and  before  treating  of  it  in  the  next  lec- 
ture I  will  gather  up  something  of  what  we 
have  been  thinking  and  anticipate  something  of 
what  we  are  going  to  think  and  try  to  make 
it  into  a  definition  of  Mysticism. 

While  I  have  said  that  Mysticism  was  most 
practical,  it  is  true  also,  and  must  be  said,  that 
like  all  the  deepest  things  in  life,  it  is  hard  to 
define.  Definition  always  tends  to  clearness, 
iDut  sometimes  we  have  a  knowledge  which  it 
is  not  easy  to  put  into  words.  So  Mysticism 
almost  defies  definition.  It  is  as  undefinable 
and  yet  as  recognizable  as  Beauty,  or  Love — 
or  God,  yet  still  it  is  possible  to  get  a  better 
understanding  of  it  and  to  approach  some  sort 
of  definition  which  will  be  true  as  far  as  it 
goes. 

The  word  Mysticism  is  commonly  used  in 
many  connections,  and  very  loosely.  Some- 
times it  is  used  to  denote  Symbolism  or  Al- 
legorism,  an  undue  stress  upon  poetic  form. 
Sometimes  it  means  the  wildest  vagaries  of 
Oriental  occultism  and  magic,  and  sometimes 
merely  the  harmless  idiosyncrasies  of  the  poor 
parson  who  is  only  unpractical  and  cannot  bal- 
ance his  accounts.    If  we  do  not  understand  a 


The  Longing  for  God  and  Its  Implications     29 

man's  theology  we  think  we  have  condemned 
it  when  we  have  called  it  mystical. 

But  if  we  press  further  for  a  proper  under- 
standing of  the  thing  we  are  met  by  just  as 
much  divergence  among  those  scholars  who 
attempt  a  definition  as  among  the  unthinking 
crowd  which  does  not  care  for  one.  Inge,  in 
his  Bampton  Lectures  on  "Christian  Mysti- 
cism." gives  a  selected  list  of  twenty-six,  and 
I  think  I  am  safe  in  saying  that  not  more 
than  two  of  them  agree.  Perhaps  we  can  best 
guide  ourselves  through  their  confusion  by  di- 
viding them  into  four  classes : 

1st:  Those  which  mistake  disparagement 
and  abuse  for  definition,  as  Noack:  "Mysti- 
cism is  formless  speculation";  and  Vaughan, 
who,  after  spending  many  "Hours  with  the 
Mystics"  can  only  say  of  them  that  their  prin- 
ciple is  "That  form  of  error  which  mistakes 
for  a  divine  manifestation  the  operations  of 
a  merely  human  faculty."  And  then  you  know 
Harnack,  who,  with  Hermann  and  the  whole 
Ritschlian  school,  bitterly  opposes  a  Mysticism 
they  misunderstand,  defines  it  as  "Rationalism 
applied  to  a  sphere  above  reason" ;  while  Her- 
mann says  bluntly  that  "the  Mystic's  experience 
of  God  is  a  delusion." 


30      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

It  is  certain  that  these  statements  do  not 
help  us.  We  must  at  least  believe  that  not  all 
Mystics  are  fools  if  we  would  come  into  any 
sympathetic  apprehension  of  their  teaching. 

2nd:  Those  who  would  describe  Mysticism 
by  its  aberrations  and  excesses,  as  with  Vic- 
tor Cousin,  who  defines  it  as  consisting  "in 
substituting  ecstasy  for  reason,  rapture  for 
philosophy";  and  Max  Nordau  says  of  it: 
"Mysticism  blurs  outlines  and  makes  the  trans- 
parent opaque."  But  it  is  wrong  always  to 
define  anything  by  its  abnormalities  or  even 
by  its  exaggerations.  Homo-sexuality  is  not 
love.  There  is  a  normal  and  an  abnormal  love, 
and  so  there  is  a  normal  and  an  abnormal  Mys- 
ticism, and  while  we  may  learn  much  from  the 
diversions  from  the  norm,  we  must  not  con- 
found the  two  nor  make  the  exception  the  rule. 

3rd:  Those  who  run  to  the  other  extreme 
and  would  define  Mysticism  in  such  broad  and 
general  terms  as  to  merge  it  into  ordinary 
Christian  living  and  thought,  as  when  Ewald 
defines  it  by  saying:  "Mystical  theology  be- 
gins by  maintaining  that  man  has  fallen  away 
from  God  and  craves  to  be  again  united  with 
him."  This  is  perfectly  true,  but  Mysticism  is 
more  than,  or  is  at  least  not  exactly  like,  Cal- 


The  Longing  for  God  and  Its  Implications     31 

vinism  or  evangelicalism.  And  Moberly,  in 
his  great  book,  "Atonement  and  Personality," 
says:  "In  proportion  as  Mysticism  either 
claims  to  be  or  is  regarded  by  ordinary  Chris- 
tians as  being,  an  abnormal  by-way  or  by-re- 
gion of  special  experiences  rather  than  as  the 
realization  in  special  fulness  of  that  which  is 
the  central  inspiration  and  meaning  of  all 
Christian  life  as  well  practical  as  contempla- 
tive, in  that  proportion  does  the  Mysticism  it- 
self become  directly  liable  to  various  forms  of 
exaggeration  and  unhealthiness,  while  the 
Christianity  which  is  content  to  remain  'non- 
mystical'  is  impoverished  at  the  very  center  of 
its  being.  All  Christians  profess  to  believe  in 
the  Holy  Ghost.  Had  only  all  Christians  un- 
derstood and  lived  up  to  their  belief  they  would 
all  have  been  Mystics ;  or,  in  other  words,  there 
would  have  been  no  Mysticism."  ^^ 

Such  definitions  evaporate  all  that  is  definite 
in  Mysticism.  We  may  all  hope,  and  perhaps 
some  us  expect,  that  the  trend  of  our  Chris- 
tian Hving  is  to  be  more  and  more  towards 
Mysticism  as  its  most  perfect  expression  when 
properly  understood  and  used.  But  just  now 
we  are  seeking  a  definition  that  will  really  de- 

" Atonement  and  Personality,  p.  315. 


32      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

fine  our  subject.  I  hope  to  show,  as  Prof.  Ru- 
fus  M.  Jones  says,  that  "Mysticism  is  simply 
Religion  in  its  most  acute,  intense  and  living 
stage,"  -^  but  we  must  first  distinguish  clearly 
its  principles  and  methods  from  those  which 
are  non-mystical,  before  we  can  intelligently 
bring  them  close  together  again.  So  we  may 
hope  more,  I  think,  from  the  last  group  of 
definitions,  which  try  to  tell  us  something  of 
Mysticism  where  it  is  dififerentiated  from  ordi- 
nary forms  of  Christianity,  both  in  its  philoso- 
phy and  its  practice,  omitting  all  that  it  has  in 
common. 

4th :  Recejac  says :  "Mysticism  claims  to  be 
able  to  know  the  Unknowable  without  help 
from  dialectics,  and  is  persuaded  that  by  means 
of  love  and  will  it  reaches  a  point  to  which 
thought,  unaided,  cannot  attain.''  -" 

And  Rufus  M.  Jones  says,  most  truly,  that 
Mysticism  is  "that  type  of  religion  which  puts 
the  emphasis  on  immediate  awareness  of  rela- 
tion with  God,  on  direct  and  intimate  con- 
sciousness of  the  divine  Presence."  ^^ 

And  Miss  Underbill  says:     "The  Mystics 

"  Studies  in  Mystical  Religion,  p.  xv. 

**  The  Bases  of  the  Mystic  Knowledge,  p.  7. 

*"  Studies  in  Mystical  Religion,  p.  xv. 


The  Longing  for  God  and  Its  Implications     33 

find  the  basis  of  their  method  not  in  logic  but 
in  life,  in  the  existence  of  a  discoverable  real, 
a  spark  of  true  being  within  the  seeking  sub- 
ject, which  can,  in  that  inefifable  experience 
which  they  call  the  act  of  union,  fuse  itself  with 
and  thus  apprehend  the  reality  of  the  sought 
object.  In  theological  language  their  theory 
of  knowledge  is  that  the  spirit  of  man,  itself 
essentially  divine,  is  capable  of  immediate 
communion  with  God,  the  only  reality.''  ''^ 

Schure  defines  Mysticism  as  ''The  art  of 
finding  God  in  one's  self." 

"Mysticism  is  that  form  of  religious  experi- 
ence in  which  man  is  so  directly  and  intuitive- 
ly conscious  of  God's  presence  within  him,  that, 
with  the  aid  of  symbols,  he  can  express  this 
experience  least  inadequately  as  a  union  with 
the  Divine."  "^^ 

I  hardly  dare  to  add  another  to  the  many 
definitions  of  Mysticism,  especially  after  call- 
ing it  undefinable ;  and  yet  T  am  impelled  to  do 
so  in  the  hope  that  it  may  clear  the  way  for 
a  better  understanding  of  what  is  to  follow, 

"  Underbill :    Mysticism,  p.  28. 

*"  James  Thayer  Addison  :    Mysticism  in  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
p.  26. 


34      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

even  if  I  have  to  anticipate  some  of  my  state- 
ments. 

It  is  such  a  personal  thing  that  I  prefer  to 
describe  it  not  as  a  system  called  Mysticism, 
but  in  terms  of  a  man,  as  the  Creed  of  a  Mystic, 
and  I  say  that  a  Christian  Mystic  is  that  kind 
of  a  Christian  who  longs  for,  and  who  believes 
he  can  have,  an  experience  of  intimate  com- 
munion with  God,  through  Christ,  in  this  life. 
This  is  his  supreme  purpose.  To  carry  this 
out  he  believes  that  by  a  course  of  training  he 
may  so  develop  his  inmost  self — call  it  what 
you  will — that  his  whole  nature  becomes  open 
and  susceptible  to  God  to  such  a  degree  that 
the  fact  of  God's  presence  within  him  becomes, 
for  him,  the  supreme  reality  of  his  life.  And 
lastly,  the  true  Mystic  not  only  has  this  longing 
for  God  and  this  determination  to  fit  himself 
for  God,  but  he  perseveres  until  he  accom- 
plishes his  purpose  and  attains  real  union  with 
God. 

I  call  your  attention  to  what  is  in  my  defini- 
tion and  not  in  the  others,  viz. :  the  method. 
It  connects  the  Longing  with  the  Fruition  by 
a  Way.    I  think  this  is  important. 

But  we  must  remember  that  definitions, 
while  necessary  for  a  science,  are  only  helpful 


The  Longing  for  God  and  Its  Implications     35 

for  an  art.  We  can  never  understand  Mysti- 
cism by  defining  it.  It  is  a  life  which  must  make 
its  appeal  to  our  lives,  and  is  best  studied  in 
the  lives  of  the  Mystics  themselves.  They 
have  been  to  the  country  we  only  read  about. 
They  have  succeeded,  where  so  many  of  us 
have  so  far  failed,  in  establishing  direct  com- 
munion with  God,  and  the  atmosphere  of  their 
country  is  so  rare  that  we  cannot  breathe  it 
suddenly;  their  lives  are  lived  on  a  plane  to 
which  we  have  not  yet  reached.  If  the  pure  in 
heart  are  the  ones  who  see  God,  then  there 
must  be  some  purity  in  our  hearts  before  we 
can  even  see  those  who  have  seen  him.  For- 
tunately we  do  not  have  to  depend  upon  defini- 
tions, nor  is  it  a  matter  of  logical  demonstra- 
tion. There  is  a  Mystic  Way,  and  if  we  choose 
we  can  follow  it,  and  if  we  follow  it  it  brings 
its  own  reward.  It  is  open  to  all  who  want 
God  enough  to  put  themselves  in  it,  and  it  ends 
at  the  last  by  their  finding  themselves  in  him. 
As  Coventry  Patmore  makes  them  say : 

"  'Oh,  taste  and  see  !*  they  cry  in  accents  of  astound- 
ing certainty  and  joy.  'Ours  is  an  experimental  sci- 
ence. We  can  but  communicate  our  system,  never  its 
result.  We  come  to  you  not  as  thinkers,  but  as  doers. 
Leave  your  deep  and  absurd  trust  in  the  senses,  with 


36       The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

their  language  of  dot  and  dash,  which  may  possibly 
report  fact  but  can  never  communicate  personality. 
If  philosophy  has  taught  you  anything,  she  has  surely 
taught  you  the  length  of  her  tether,  and  the  impos- 
sibility of  attaining  to  the  doubtless  admirable  grazing 
land  which  lies  beyond  it.  One  after  another,  idealists 
have  arisen  who,  straining  frantically  at  the  rope,  have 
announced  to  the  world  their  approaching  liberty ;  only 
to  be  flung  back  at  last  into  the  little  circle  of  sensa- 
tion. But  here  we  are,  a  small  family,  it  is  true,  yet 
one  that  refuses  to  die  out,  assuring  you  that  we  have 
slipped  the  knot  and  are  free  of  those  grazing- 
grounds.  This  is  evidence  which  you  are  bound  to 
bring  into  account  before  you  can  add  up  the  sum 
total  of  possible  knowledge ;  for  you  will  find  it  im- 
possible to  prove  that  the  world,  as  seen  by  the  mys- 
tics, "unimaginable,  formless,  dark,  with  excess  of 
bright,"  is  less  real  than  that  which  is  expounded  by 
the  youngest  and  most  promising  demonstrator  of  the 
psycho-chemical  universe.  We  will  be  quite  candid 
with  you.  Examine  us  as  much  as  you  like :  our  ma- 
chinery, our  veracity,  our  results.  We  cannot  promise 
that  you  shall  see  what  we  have  seen,  for  here  each 
man  must  adventure  for  himself ;  but  we  defy  you  to 
stigmatize  our  experiences  as  impossible  or  invalid. 
Is  your  world  of  experience  so  well  and  logically 
founded  that  you  dare  make  of  it  a  standard?  Phi- 
losophy tells  you  that  it  is  founded  on  nothing  better 
than  the  reports  of  your  sensory  apparatus  and  the 
traditional  concepts  of  the  race.  Certainly  it  is  im- 
perfect, probably  it  is  illusion ;  in  any  event,  it  never 


The  Longing  for  God  and  Its  Implications     37 

touches  the  foundation  of  things.  Whereas  what  the 
world,  which  truly  knows  nothing,  calls  "mysticism" 
is  the  science  of  ultimates  .  .  .  the  science  of  self- 
evident  Reality,  which  cannot  be  "reasoned  about," 
because  it  is  the  object  of  pure  reason  or  perception.'  " 
["The  Rod,  the  Root  and  the  Flower,"  Aurea  Dicta 
CXXVIII.] 

Let  us  accept  their  invitation  to  taste  and 
see.  Experiment  in  all  honesty.  Adventure 
for  God.    Start  on  the  Mystic  Way. 

So  I  propose  in  the  next  lecture  to  take  them 
at  their  word,  and  to  let  them  tell  us  what 
they  have  done  and  felt,  and  make  up  from 
their  testimony  a  directory  of  the  Way  and  see 
if  the  path  is  not  inviting.  I  think  you  will 
find  it  less  unfamiliar  than  you  think.  I  beg 
you  to  carry  over  to  it  the  few  thoughts  I  have 
given  you  to-day.  Like  Bergson's  Memory, 
our  study  is  to  be  cumulative,  and  we  cannot 
leave  anything  behind  except,  I  trust,  our  pre- 
judices, which  you  know  are  only  unfavorable 
opinions  founded  upon  ignorance. 

SUGGESTED  READING 

Fiske:    Through  Nature  to  God.    Houghton,  Mifflin 

Co.    1899. 
Jones:    Social  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World.    John  C. 

Winston  Co.    1904. 


38       The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

Inge:  Christian  Mysticism.  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 
1899. 

Inge  :    Light,  Life,  and  Love.    Methuen  &  Co.    1904. 

Fleming:  Mysticism  in  Christianity.  Fleming  H. 
Revell  Co.    1913. 

Theologia  Germanica,  translated  by  Miss  Winkworth. 
Macmillan  &  Co.     1874. 

St.  Augustine  :    Confessions. 

RoYCE :  Sources  of  Religious  Insight.  Charles  Scrib- 
ner's Sons.     1912. 


II 

THE  WAY  TOWARD  GOD 

The  Mystic  aims  to  find  God  and  to  com- 
plete himself  in  him. 

We  saw  in  the  last  lecture  that  he  begins 
with  a  sense  of  need,  a  need  not  peculiar  to 
himself,  but  universal,  and  felt  by  all  men,  al- 
though in  varying  degree.  And  we  saw  that 
from  this  longing  grew  a  number  of  postulates, 
truths  which  could  reasonably  be  assumed, 
granting  that  this  longing  is  a  genuinely  hu- 
man thing.  The  Mystic  believes  that  this  want 
is  not  purely  subjective,  but  is  part  of  his  di- 
vine endowment,  a  taste  of  divinity  given  him 
to  whet  his  appetite  for  more ;  that  to  desire  is 
to  have,  to  seek  is  to  find.  And  because  his  de- 
sire is  so  intense,  because  he  knows  that  noth- 
ing less  than  God  will  satisfy  it,  he  sets  out  to 
find  God  by  experience,  and  is  sure  in  his  heart 
that  he  will  arrive. 

So  to-day  it  is  our  purpose  to  study  how  the 

39 


40      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

Mystic  proceeds  to  attain  his  aim.  There  are 
certain  means  to  be  used  by  which  man  can 
reach  God,  or  perhaps  we  had  better  say,  cer- 
tain means  by  which  man  may  hold  himself 
open  for  God  to  come  to  him;  or  better  still, 
call  it  the  secret  of  that  descent  into  the  center 
of  his  being  that  God  may  be  found  already 
there. 

Whatever  we  call  it,  it  is  a  process.  It  is  the 
Mystic  Way. 

Unless  man  is  like  God,  bears  his  nature, 
he  cannot  find  God  nor  hope  to  know  him.  The 
hope  of  success  lies  in  this  relationship  which 
we  have  assumed  exists.  But  the  Mystic 
knows  that  the  mere  fact  of  relationship  is  not 
enough.  To  know  that  at  once  reveals  the 
humiliating  difiference.  He  cannot  know  God 
until  he  becomes  more  like  God.  It  is  a  circle, 
but  a  virtuous  one.  To  know  more  makes  like, 
and  as  each  touch  of  likeness  is  added  comes  a 
truer  knowledge. 

Therefore  I  keep  repeating  that  Mysticism 
is  not  a  mere  opinion,  not  a  philosophy,  not 
even  a  hunger,  however  great.  It  is  a  prac- 
tical way  of  life,  a  development  of  the  self  in 
the  attempt  to  satisfy  that  hunger.  It  is  a 
striving  to  remake  the  character,  to  fit  it  that 


The  Way  Toward  God  41 

it  may  become  worthy  to  receive  the  satisfac- 
tion it  craves.  As  Recejac  says :  "There  is  no 
other  means  of  getting^  possession  of  the  Abso- 
lute than  by  adapting  ourselves  to  it,  and  when 
once  it  has  first  taken  possession  of  us  we  ac- 
quire experience  of  it  in  ourselves.* 

This  at  once  differentiates  Mysticism  from 
all  the  vagueness  and  visionariness  which  have 
been  ascribed  to  it,  and  rules  out  many  of  the 
definitions  we  have  studied.  It  may  dream  and 
poetize  and  philosophize,  but  in  the  true  Mystic 
these  are  all  subordinate  to  the  practical  aim, 
which  is  Sanctity,  the  fitting  of  one's  self  to 
receive  God.  Leuba  says :  "One  of  the  marks 
of  the  true  Mystic  is  the  tenacious  and  heroic 
energy  with  which  he  pursues  a  definite  moral 
ideal."  2 

Even  Sanctity,  the  perfecting  of  individual 
character,  is  only  a  means  to  an  end,  the  at- 
tainment of  the  supreme  end,  living  union  with 
God.  In  other  words,  the  Mystic  cares  for 
purity  of  heart  only  that  by  it  he  may  see  God. 

If  we  read  the  works  of  the  Mystics  them- 
selves we  discover  a  certain  order  in  their  dis- 
cipline, sometimes  set  down  clearly  as  a  road 

'  The  Bases  of  the  \fyslic  Kttoivledge,  p.  35. 
'Quoted  in  Underbill:    Mysticism,  p.  109. 


42       The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

for  others  to  follow,  sometimes  appearing  only 
in  the  course  of  a  life  of  devotion.  These  steps 
in  the  Mystic  Way  vary  somewhat  in  number, 
but  in  character  they  are  so  much  alike  that 
we  can  make  a  composite  diagram  of  them 
which  will  do  for  our  purpose  in  understand- 
ing the  principle,  even  if  it  do  not  fit  any  one 
Mystic  exactly.  Some  of  them  have  insisted 
on  three,  as  in  the  "Theologia  Germanica,"  ^ 
Ruysbroek  calls  his  three  steps  the  Active  Life, 
the  Inward  Life,  and  the  Contemplative  Life, 
although  he  proceeds  to  subdivide  each  of 
these.  Others  set  forth  seven.  Miss  Under- 
bill compromises  on  five.  I  think  we  shall  gain 
in  clearness  if  we  adhere  to  the  larger  number, 

*  "Now  be  assured  that  no  one  can  be  enlightened  unless 
he  be  first  cleansed  or  purified  and  stripped.  So  also  no  one 
can  be  united  with  God  unless  he  be  first  enlightened.  Thus 
there  are  three  stages :  first,  the  purification ;  secondly,  the 
enlightenment;  thirdly,  the  union.  The  purification  concern- 
eth  those  who  are  beginning  or  repenting,  and  is  brought  to 
pass  in  a  threefold  wise:  by  contrition  and  sorrow  for  sin, 
by  full  confession,  by  hearty  amendment.  The  enlightening 
belongeth  to  such  as  are  growing,  and  also  taketh  place  in 
three  ways :  to  wit,  by  the  eschewal  of  sin,  by  the  practice 
of  virtue  and  good  works,  and  by  the  willing  endurance  of 
all  manner  of  temptation  and  trials.  The  union  belongeth  to 
such  as  are  perfect,  and  also  is  brought  to  pass  in  three  ways : 
to  wit,  by  pureness  and  singleness  of  heart,  by  love,  and  by 
the  contemplation  of  God,  the  Creator  of  all  things." 
[Theologia   Gcrtnanica,   Trans,    by   Winkworth :    pp.    44-45.] 


The  Way  Toward  God  43 

and  by  thus  subdividing  make  our  steps  short- 
er. I  would  say,  then,  that  the  processes 
through  which  the  Mystics  in  general  pass 
from  longing  to  fruition  are  these  seven: — 

1st.  The  Longing,  of  which  we  have  already 
treated.  That  surely  must  come  first  and  be 
real  and  intense.  It  need  not  imply  a  definite 
consciousness  of  its  Object,  but  it  need  be 
none  the  less  urgent  because  vague  and  dif- 
fused. 

2nd.  The  awakening  of  the  soul  when,  more 
or  less  suddenly,  it  catches  a  glimpse  of  its  goal 
and  undergoes  a  change  in  the  level  of  its  liv- 
ing. It  is  the  result  of  what  is  called  in  re- 
ligious phrase,  Conversion. 

3rd.  The  sight  of  God  and  Self  thus  brought 
together  even  with  the  slightest  understand- 
ing of  the  former,  gives  to  the  Self  that  sense 
of  shame  we  call  Repentance,  that  desire  for 
change  we  call  Metanoia,  the  result  of  which 
is  often  the  crudest  asceticism.  It  is  the  at- 
tempt of  the  finite  and  sinful  to  eliminate,  not 
only  by  repudiation  but  by  discipline,  the  im- 
perfections and  sins  which  keep  the  soul  away 
from  God.  The  Mystical  word  for  this  is  Pur- 
gation. 

4th.  Not    following    but    running    parallel 


44       The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

with  this  is  the  next  step,  called  Contempla- 
tion. In  this  are  the  Silence,  Meditation, 
Prayer,  Concentration,  visions  and  adventures 
of  the  soul,  processes  all  by  which  the  soul, 
gradually  becoming  more  pure  in  heart,  attunes 
itself,  putting  itself  en  rapport  with  God. 

5th.  Then  these  glimpses  result  some  day 
in  a  vision  which  is  clear  enough  to  rejoice  the 
soul,  in  a  sense  of  the  Divine  Presence,  which 
satisfies,  even  if  not  completely.  It  is  called 
Illumination.  The  search  is  rewarded,  the 
mountain  top  is  seen,  if  not  yet  reached.  Joy 
enters  the  soul. 

6th.  But  so  near  are  joy  and  sorrow  in  life 
that  along  with  the  vision  come  alternations 
of  darkness;  along  with  the  satisfaction  come 
moments  of  black  despair;  along  with  the  sense 
of  growing  union  come  awful  moments  when 
the  sense  of  the  Divine  Presence  is  lost.  Some- 
times this  state  will  alternate,  and  sometimes, 
and  for  long  at  a  time,  it  will  occupy  the  whole 
field.  It  is  called  the  Dark  Night  of  the  Soul, 
or  the  Mystic  Death.  It  is  mysteriously  con- 
nected with  the  death  of  the  Self.  It  is  the 
last  step  in  Purgation.  In  utter  submission 
the  soul  gives  up  and,  asking  nothing,  is  then 
])repared  for  the  final  step,  the    . 


The  Way  Toward  God  45 

7th,  which  cuhninates  in  perfect  union,  God 
waiting  only  for  the  complete  preparation  of 
man's  soul  to  reward  it  by  inward  joys  which 
only  those  who  have  endured  to  the  end  can 
understand.     It  is  called  the  Unitive  State. 

I.  In  tracing  more  in  detail  these  steps  of 
the  Mystic  Way  we  need  not  retrace  the  first. 
We  take  the  Longing  for  granted. 

II.  Sooner  or  later,  to  the  earnest  soul  seek- 
ing satisfaction,  there  comes  the  answer  back 
from  God.  The  connection  is  shown.  The 
soul  recognizes  its  goal.  It  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  acceptance  of  theological  statements. 
It  is  too  real  for  that.  It  is  Life,  enhanced 
life,  life  on  a  higher  plane,  the  setting  of  the 
character  in  a  different  environment.  You 
may  call  this  Conversion,  if  you  will,  but  with 
the  Mystic,  while  it  may  be  the  same  in  essence 
as  the  ordinary  sort,  it  is  much  higher  in  de- 
gree. By  so  much  as  the  initial  longing  was 
greater,  the  joy  that  now  comes  is  more  in- 
tense. 

It  may  also  be  either  sudden  or  gradual,  but 
these  are  very  relative  terms.  Like  a  long- 
dreaded  and  long-expected  death,  when  it 
comes  it  is  always  sudden  and  yet  there  is  no 
touch  of  God  which  comes  to  the  soul  that  is 


46       The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

not  long  prepared  for.  Conversion  is  always 
both  a  process  and  a  crisis.  St.  Paul's  is  called 
sudden,  but  there  must  have  been  many  warn- 
ings that  came  to  him  in  the  "goads,"  much 
preparation  in  twinges  of  conscience,  and  un- 
certainties and  longings  and  regrets.  St.  Au- 
gustine has  told  us  in  his  "Confessions,"  as  he 
looked  back  over  the  course  of  his  life,  how 
many  leadings  were  given  him,  withholdings 
from  sin,  guidances  in  his  Jife's  work,  in- 
fluences from  many  sources,  all  unsuspected 
and  unheeded,  and  yet  all  found  afterwards  to 
have  had  their  convergence  upon  that  one  su- 
preme moment  when  he  heard  the  words, 
"Tolle,  lege"  and  was  converted.  But  who 
shall  say  that  even  that  result  was  sudden  ?  As 
well  fix  the  moment  when  the  rose  blooms  or 
the  apple  ripens.* 

*  "There  are  times  in  Alpine  climbing  when  the  stroke  of 
an  ice-axe  or  the  shout  of  a  climber  will  set  an  avalanche  in 
motion.  It  was  not  the  shout  that  was  fit  to  move  a  thousand 
tons  of  snow.  It  was  the  weight  of  the  snow  itself  in 
equipoise  so  fine  that  the  least  vibration  of  the  air  could 
start  it.  So,  too,  thoughts  and  feelings  gather  until  a  word 
will  give  them  life  and  force  to  the  overthrowing  of  spirit- 
ual dominions,  principalities  and  powers.  But  the  fitting 
word  must  be  rightly  spoken  and  the  right  word  is  always 
an  appeal  to  something  already  within  the  soul."  [Steven : 
The  Psychology  of  the  Christian  Soul,  p.  163.] 


The  Way  Toward  God  47 

To  almost  every  one  who  has  had  this  ex- 
perience and  looks  back  upon  it,  there  comes 
the  recollection  of  a  long,  if  at  the  time,  un- 
appreciated preparation.  The  flesh  had  been 
lusting  against  the  spirit,  and  the  spirit  against 
the  flesh.  Doubts  had  been  fought  and  long- 
ings had  been  stifled,  modes  of  life  were  criti- 
cised and  then  acquiesced  in.  Thoughts  came 
unbidden  and  were  dismissed.  But  these  all 
left  their  mark  and  their  effect  was  cumula- 
tive. As  the  strength  of  them  increased,  the 
fight  against  them  increased  also;  as  the  wa- 
ters rose  the  dam  was  built  higher  and  higher 
to  meet  and  resist  them.  It  is  the  everlasting 
conflict.  And  then  some  day  the  dam  bursts 
and  the  water  of  life  floods  the  soul,  and  we 
call  that  moment  Conversion.  It  all  depends 
upon  the  fight  the  man  has  made  how  sudden 
the  defeat  seems.  But  "defeat"  is  not  the  word 
to  use.  If  the  breaking  of  the  dam  stands  for 
the  crumbling  of  the  old  and  lower  self,  it 
stands  much  more  for  the  influx  of  the  new 
self,  the  new  man  in  Christ  Jesus.^  It  is  vic- 
tory, 

^  "Spontaneous  awakenings  are  the  fructification  of  that 
which  has  been  ripening  within  the  subliminal  consciousness." 
[Starbuck:     The  Psychology  of  Religion,  p.  108.] 

"The  ideal  dawns:  the  will  is   exercised  in  its  direction; 


48      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

Thus  does  the  second  stage  of  the  Mystic 
Way  open.  It  is  the  awakening  of  the  soul,  its 
new  birth.  The  true  life  of  the  Mystic,  as  of 
every  Christian,  begins  here,  and  it  begins  in 
a  joy  which  is  unutterable.  All  the  storm  and 
stress  of  the  past  are  forgotten.  In  its  joyous 
submission  to  God  the  soul,  released  from  the 
bonds  of  self,  leaps  up  to  find  ''all  things  new." 
God  is  seen  everywhere  and  in  everything.  All 
nature  is  irradiated  with  him.  In  almost  all 
cases  when  the  Mystic  has  spoken,  it  is,  like  St. 
Paul,  of  a  blinding  radiance. 

But  then  these  vague  raptures  which  en- 
velop the  whole  world  in  a  new  light  must  not 
dissipate  the  personal  touch  which  God  has  laid 
upon  the  soul.  His  word,  "My  son,  give  me 
thine  heart,"  must  be  heeded.  And  here  there 
is  an  even  deeper  joy,  the  joy  of  self -surrender 
and  of  service.  The  convert  hears  some  defi- 
nite command,  is  given  some  definite  task. 
"Rise,  enter  into  the  city  and  it  shall  be  told 
thee  what  thou  must  do,"  were  the  words  to 

failing,  there  is  unrest  and  distress;  finally  the  ideal  is  un- 
expectedly realized.  The  function  of  the  will  in  Conversion 
then  seems  to  be  to  give  point  and  direction  to  the  uncon- 
scious processes  of  growth  which  in  turn  work  out  and  give 
back  to  clear  consciousness  the  revelations  striven  after." 
[Ibid.,  p.  112.] 


The  Way  Toward  God  49 

St.  Paul;  and  to  St.  Francis  came  the  words 
from  the  Crucifix:  "Go,  repair  my  house,  the 
which,  as  thou  seest,  is  falling  into  decay." 
So  Conversion,  to  be  complete,  must  end  in  a 
decision  of  the  will,  crowning  all  that  has  gone 
before,  involving  often  a  complete  change  not 
only  of  the  inward  but  of  the  outward  life.  St. 
Paul  "was  not  disobedient  unto  the  heavenly 
vision."  St.  Francis  began  immediately  to  re- 
pair the  fabric  of  St.  Damian.*' 

III.  If  Conversion  is  the  sight  of  God  in 
Christ,  then  surely  Repentance  is  the  sight  of 
self  in  the  light  of  God's  Holiness.  Then  the 
infinite  difference  becomes  manifest.  In  his 
light  we  see  light.  Then  comes  the  desire  for 
Purification,  among  some  Mystics  so  deep  and 
intense  as  to  lead  them  into  the  extremest  as- 
ceticism. All  that  would  make  life  pleasant 
is  cut  off,  the  flesh  is  denied,  the  social  instincts 
are  crushed.  This  is  partly  as  self-punish- 
ment for  the  past,  partly  an  attempt  to  avoid 
the  old  temptations,  and  partly  a  setting  free 

•"Divine  love  draws  those  whom  it  seizes  beyond  them- 
selves, and  this  so  greatly  that  they  belong  no  longer  to  them- 
selves, but  wholly  to  the  Object  loved."  [Dionysius:  Diznnc 
Navies.  IV,  13I 


50       The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

of  the  soul  for  the  highest  thing,  the  attain- 
ment of  GodJ 

All  this  differs  from  the  repentance  of  the 
ordinary  Christian  only  in  degree,  and  even 
here  we  must  be  careful  to  remember  that  not 
all  Mystics  are  ascetics,  any  more  than  are 
all  ascetics  Mystics.  Even  among  the  ex- 
tremists their  asceticism  is  generally  tempo- 
rary. They  outgrow  it  and  see  its  abnormal 
character.  Suso  is  a  fair  example.  After 
more  than  fifteen  years  of  the  most  terrible 
austerities,  he  has  told  us,  speaking  of  himself 
in  the  third  person,  of  a  vision  that  he  had. 
On  a  certain  Whitsunday  a  Heavenly  messen- 
ger appeared  to  him  and  ordered  him,  in  God's 
name,  to  continue  them  no  more.  He  at  once 
ceased  and  threw  all  the  instruments  of  his 
sufferings  into  a  river,  and  began  to  lead  a 
more  natural  life. 

'  "Meekness  in  itself  is  nought  else,  but  a  true  knowing  and 
feeling  of  a  man's  self  as  he  is.  For  surely  whoso  might 
verily  see  and  feel  himself  as  he  is,  he  should  verily  be 
meek."     [The  Cloud  of  Unknowing,  p.  ii6.] 

"And  wete  thou  well  that  he  that  desireth  for  to  see  God, 
him  behoveth  to  cleanse  his  soul,  the  which  is  as  a  mirror,  in 
which  all  things  are  clearly  seen,  when  it  is  clean ;  and  when 
the  mirror  is  foul,  then  mayest  thou  see  nothing  clearly 
Avithin;  and  right  so  it  is  of  thy  soul,  when  it  is  foul,  neither 
thou  knowest  thyself  nor  God."  [The  Cell  of  Self -Knowl- 
edge, p.  30.1 


The  Way  Toward  God  51 

It  is  the  Mystic  spirit  which  underlies  the 
monastic  vows  of  Poverty,  Chastity  and  Obedi- 
ence. As  for  Poverty,  Miss  Underhill's  quo- 
tations from  Rolle  and  Petersen  and  St.  John 
of  the  Cross  show  how  high  and  pure  is  the 
Mystic's  ideal.  True  poverty  is  only  the  new 
way  of  looking  at  Reality,  of  not  being  taken 
captive  by  the  mere  show  of  "Things."  It 
is  one's  attitude  towards  such.  "I  am  not 
speaking  here  of  the  absence  of  things,"  says 
St.  John  of  the  Cross,  "for  absence  is  not  de- 
tachment if  the  desire  remains — but  of  that 
detachment  which  consists  in  suppressing  de- 
sire and  avoiding  pleasure.  It  is  this  that  sets 
the  soul  free  even  though  possession  may  be 
still  retained."  ^ 

And  Gerlac  Petersen  says:  "Let  all  things 
be  forsaken  of  me  so  that,  being  pure,  I  may 
be  able,  in  great  inward  spaciousness  and 
without  any  hurt,  to  suffer  want  of  all  those 
things  which  the  mind  of  man  can  desire  out 
of  or  except  God  himself."  ® 

And  again  Richard  Rolle  tells  us:  "If  thou 
truly  all  things   for  God   forsake,  see  more 

*  The  Ascent  of  Mount  Carmel,  Book  I,  Chap.  Ill,  4. 
* Ignitum  cum  Deo  Soliloquitim,  I:i,  III. 


52       The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

what    thou   despiseth   than   what    thou    for- 
saketh."  '" 

"Fast  thou  never  so  much,  wake  thou  never  so  long, 
rise  thou  never  so  early,  He  thou  never  so  hard,  wear 
thou  never  so  sharp ;  yea,  and  if  it  were  lawful  to  do 
— as  it  is  not — put  thou  out  thine  eyes,  cut  thou  out 
thy  tongue  of  thy  mouth,  stop  thou  thine  ears  and  thy 
nose  never  so  fast,  though  thou  shear  away  thy  mem- 
bers, and  do  all  the  pain  to  thy  body  that  thou  mayest 
or  canst  think :  all  this  would  help  thee  right  nought. 
Yet  will  stirring  and  rising  of  sin  be  in  thee."  ^^ 

Of  Chastity  the  Mystic  has  none  of  the 
monkish  feeling.  It  is  purity  of  heart  which 
he  seeks,  and  family  life  need  not  be  re- 
pudiated. 

And  Obedience  is  seldom  as  of  the  monk  to 
a  human  Superior.  It  is  to  God  alone.  But 
all  these,  and  whatever  else  they  may  do  or 
deny,  are  means  to  an  end.  They  have  no 
value  in  themselves.  The  Mystic  is  after  God 
and  so  pushes  from  him  everything  that  would 
hinder  his  search.  It  is  slight  wonder  if  in 
some  cases  he  stripped  himself  of  more  than 
was  needful. 

A  horrible  example  is  given  by  that  other- 

*•  The  Mending  of  Life,  Ch.  III. 
"  The  Cloud  of  Unki^oiving.  p.  113. 


The  Way  Toward  God  53 

wise  saintly  Angela  da  Foligno,  who  seems  to 
expect  approval  by  this  statement: — "In  that 
time,  and  by  God's  will,  there  died  my  mother, 
who  was  a  great  hindrance  unto  me  in  fol- 
lowing the  way  of  God:  my  husband  died  like- 
wise, and  in  a  short  time  there  also  died  all 
my  children.  And  because  I  had  commenced 
to  follow  the  aforesaid  way  and  had  prayed 
God  that  he  would  rid  me  of  them,  I  had  great 
consolation  of  their  deaths,  albeit  I  did  also 
feel  some  grief."  ^^ 

IV.  Mysticism  is  a  life  process,  a  method 
by  which  man  attempts  to  put  himself,  by  the 
use  of  means,  into  direct  relation  to  reality,  to 
turn  from  the  "shows  of  things"  to  God  him- 
self by  ever  completer  adjustment.  So  far  the 
steps  have  been  quite  in  harmony  with  those 
taken  by  any  earnest  man,  be  he  Mystic  or  not. 
The  longing,  the  glimpse  of  the  goal,  the  striv- 
ing for  a  better  life,  are  parts  of  Mysticism 
only  as  that  is  human.  We  come  now  to  an- 
other step  where  the  ways  part  somewhat. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  Mystic,  however  the 
earth  may  become  irradiated  for  him  with  the 
sense  of  God  everywhere,  looks  for  God  within 
himself.     He  does  not  expect  to  come  at  God 

"Book  of  the  Ditniie  Consolation,  p.  5. 


54      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

with  telescope  or  microscope  or  by  the  logical 
processes  of  reason.  To  find  God  he  must  re- 
tire into  his  inmost  self  and  there  be  quiet  and 
look  and  listen.  This  is  the  step  called  Con- 
templation. It  is  not  taken  alone.  It  is,  as  I 
have  said,  parallel  to  that  of  Purgation,  and 
even  to  that  of  Illumination.  It  is  the  common 
medium  by  which  and  in  which  the  Mystic 
works.  It  is  the  most  characteristic  quality 
of  Mysticism,  and  it  is  a  large  and  varied  one. 
By  Contemplation  I  mean  the  Practice  of  the 
Presence  of  God,  and  it  includes  Quiet,  Silence, 
Recollection,  Prayer.  In  it  are  found  also 
those  peculiarly  mystical  tendencies  to  the 
hearing  of  voices  and  the  seeing  of  visions,  to 
trances  and  raptures  and  ecstasies.  These 
will  need  much  careful  study  if  we  would  un- 
derstand the  theory,  and  much  hard  work  if  we 
could  come  to  its  practice.  For  as  Miss  Under- 
bill says :  "Transcendental  genius,  then,  obeys 
the  laws  which  govern  all  other  forms  of 
genius  in  being  susceptible  of  culture,  and  in- 
deed cannot  develop  its  full  powers  without  an 
educative  process  of  some  kind.  This  strange 
art  of  Contemplation,  which  the  Mystic  tends 
naturally  to  practise  during  the  whole  of  his 
career — which  develops  step  by  step  with  his 


The  Way  Toward  God  55 

vision  and  his  love — demands  of  the  self  which 
undertakes  it  the  same  hard,  dull  work,  the 
same  slow  training  of  the  will  which  lies  be- 
hind all  supreme  achievement,  and  is  the  price 
of  all  true  liberty.  It  is  the  want  of  such  train- 
ing— such  *super-sensual  drill' — which  is  re- 
sponsible for  the  mass  of  vague,  ineffectual  and 
sometimes  harmful  Mysticism  which  has  al- 
ways existed:  the  dilute  cosmic  emotion  and 
limp  spirituality  which  hangs,  as  it  were,  on 
the  skirts  of  the  true  seekers  of  the  Absolute 
and  brings  discredit  on  their  science."  '^ 

"Now  the  education  which  tradition  has  ever 
prescribed  for  the  Mystic  consists  in  the  grad- 
ual development  of  an  extraordinary  faculty  of 
concentration,  a  power  of  spiritual  atten- 
tion."^^ 

All  the  powers  of  the  soul  must  be  gathered 
and  concentrated  upon  "one  point."  ''Cease," 
says  Boehme,  "but  from  thine  own  activity 
steadfastly  fixing  thine  eye  upon  one  point. 
.  .  .  For  this  end  gather  in  all  thy  thoughts 
and  by  faith  press  into  the  Center,  laying  hold 
upon  the  Word  of  God  which  is  infallible  and 
which  hath  called  thee.  Be  thou  obedient  to 
this  call  and  be  silent  before  the  Lord,  sitting 

"  Underbill :    Mysticisni,  p.  359.  "  Ibid. :  p.  360. 


56      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

alone  with  him  in  thine  inmost  and  most  hid- 
den cell,  thy  mind  being  centrally  united  in  it- 
self and  attending  his  will  in  the  patience  of 
hope."^^ 

Just  as  attention  was  called  to  the  danger,  in 
the  Purgative  stage,  of  running  into  the  ex- 
tremes of  asceticism  and  self -mutilation,  so 
here  we  should  be  warned  of  another  common 
exaggeration  which  has  often  brought  Mysti- 
cism into  disrepute.  There  is  danger  that  this 
Quiet  degenerate  into  or  be  mistaken  for 
Quietism.  One  is  the  active  state  of  spiritual 
receptiveness,  the  other  is  mere  spiritual  lazi- 
ness— "a  half-hypnotic  state  of  passivity." 
Ruysbroek  has  sternly  condemned  this  perver- 
sion.    *'It  is  important  that  we  should  know, 

"  Boehme :    Dialogue  of  the  Super-sensual  Life,  p.  56. 

"So  being  beaten  to  it,  by  constant  sense,  and  daily  ex- 
perience, that  it  is  not  by  our  willing  or  running,  according 
to  our  wisdom  and  strength,  that  we  can  attain  anything;  but 
by  God's  showing  mercy  to  us  in  Christ;  we  therefore  daily 
wait  at  the  posts  of  God's  heavenly  wisdom,  to  feel  the  gate 
of  mercy  and  tender  love  opened  to  us,  and  mercy  and  love 
flow  in  upon  us,  whereby  we  may  and  daily  do,  obtain  what 
our  hearts  desire  and  seek  after,  blessed  be  the  Lord  for- 
ever."    [Isaac  Penington :    Horce  Mystica,  p.  72.] 

"In  time  of  strong  temptation,  desertion  and  desolation  it 
is  necessary  for  thee  to  get  close  into  thy  centre,  that  thou 
raayest  only  look  at  and  contemplate  God,  who  keeps  His 
throne  and  His  abode  in  the  bottom  of  thy  soul."  [Molinos : 
Mora  Mystica,  p.  116.] 


The  Way  Toward  God  57 

denounce  and  crush  all  quietism.  These  quiet- 
ists  remain  in  a  state  of  utter  passivity;  in 
order  that  they  may  more  tranquilly  enjoy  their 
false  repose  they  abstain  from  every  interior 
and  exterior  activity.  Such  a  repose  is  treason 
to  God,  a  crime  of  Icse-majcste.  Quietism 
blinds  a  man,  plunging  him  into  that  ignorance 
which  is  not  superior,  but  inferior  to  all  knowl- 
edge; such  a  man  remains  seated  within  him- 
self, useless  and  inert.  This  repose  is  simply 
laziness  and  this  tranquillity  is  forgetfulness  of 
God,  one's  self  and  one's  neighbor.  It  is  the 
exact  opposite  of  the  divine  peace,  the  opposite 
of  the  peace  of  the  Abyss,  of  that  marvelous 
peace  which  is  full  of  activity,  full  of  affection, 
full  of  desire,  full  of  seeking,  that  burning  and 
insatiable  peace  which  we  pursue  more  and 
more  after  we  have  found  it.  Between  the 
peace  of  the  heights  and  the  quietism  of  the 
depths  there  is  all  the  difference  that  exists  be- 
tween God  and  a  mistaken  creature."  ^^ 

If  we  have  at  all  understood  what  is  meant  by 
Recollection  and  Quiet,  or  if  we  should  attempt 
to  put  these  into  practice,  we  should  find,  per- 
haps to  our  surprise,  that  what  we  had  at- 

"  Quoted  in  Underbill :    Mysticism,  p.  385,  from  condensa- 
tion by  Hello. 


58      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

tained  to  was  Prayer  in  its  highest  form.  It 
is  not  the  petitionary  side  of  prayer,  but  it  has 
behind  and  through  it  all  the  intense  longing 
for  God.  Prayer  is  asking,  but  it  is  more  large- 
ly receiving;  it  is  talking  with  God,  but  if  we 
would  be  acceptable  conversationalists  we  must 
be  good  listeners,  and  to  listen  for  God  is  to  be 
greatly  rewarded. 

Before  leaving  this  step  in  the  Mystic  Way 
we  must  touch  on  some  of  its  results,  which 
have  received  from  many  more  attention  than 
they  deserve.  The  whole  matter  of  Contem- 
plation, because  it  is  largely  composed  of  con- 
centration, of  course  carries  with  it  results 
psychical  and  psychological,  which  we  know  to 
be  associated  with  concentration.  It  is  possible 
to  let  go  all  hold  of  the  outer  world,  to  be  ac- 
tually lost  in  thought,  a  state  made  familiar  by 
hypnotism.  Intense  absorption  upon  one  ob- 
ject or  idea  may  lead  to  physical  trance  or  cata- 
lepsy, complete  and  rigid  anesthesia.  I  need 
hardly  remind  you  that  while  this  may  accom- 
pany the  Mystic's  contemplation,  it  is  no  part 
of  it.  It  may  accompany  anybody's  contempla- 
tion say,  of  his  navel,  and  is  equally  important 
and  useful.  By  itself  it  has  no  spiritual  value. 
As  Godfernaux  says,  it  is  only  "the  extreme 


The  Way  Toward  God  59 

form  of  a  state  which  must  be  classed  among 
the  ordinary  accidents  of  conscious  life."  '"^ 

This  accounts  for  the  common  use  of  sym- 
bols to  stimulate  the  Mystic's  attention  and  so 
to  cause  the  ecstasy.  For  each  some  special 
thing  or  act  is  used  as  the  help  towards  gaining 
the  vision  or  the  trance.  The  Holy  Communion 
would  do  this  for  St.  Catherine  of  Siena,  while 
St.  Francis  of  Assisi  and  many  others  would 
gaze  upon  the  Crucifix.  Boehme  was  sent  into 
a  trance  by  looking  at  the  reflection  of  the  light 
seen  on  a  copper  kettle.  The  reason  these  states 
of  ecstasy  and  rapture  have  bulked  so  large  in 
the  history  of  Mysticism  is  because  its  subjects 
have  been  of  such  intense  nature  that  in  them 
they  have  been  most  extraordinarily  induced; 
and  in  many  of  them  they  have  been  valued 
above  their  real  worth.  They  have  not  real- 
ized their  earthly  origin  and  have  forgotten 
how  easy  it  is  for  the  starving  to  see  visions, 
whether  their  fasting  be  voluntary  and  for 
righteousness'  sake,  or  involuntary  on  a  raft  in 
mid-ocean.  Nevertheless  they  do  have  their 
value,  and  properly  criticised,  must  be  admit- 
ted to  have  great  importance.  But  this  comes 
not  from  the  ecstasy  itself,  but  from  its  after 

"As  quoted  in  Underbill:     Mysticism,  p.  431. 


6o      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

effects.  It  must  be  known  by  its  fruits.  "It 
is  all  the  difference  between  a  healthy  appe- 
tite for  nourishing  food  and  the  morbid  crav- 
ing for  garbage.  The  same  organs  of  diges- 
tion are  used  in  satisfying  both;  yet  he  would 
be  a  hardy  physiologist  who  undertook  to  dis- 
credit all  nutrition  by  a  reference  to  its  degene- 
rate forms."  ^^ 

The  same  person  may  have  two  trances,  and 
one  be  healthful,  exalting,  and  exhilarating, 
and  the  other  be  enfeebling  and  morbid.  "For 
I  tell  thee  truly  that  the  Devil  hath  his  con- 
templatives  as  God  hath  his."  ^^ 

The  ecstasy  of  which  we  are  speaking  is  not 
only  physical  and  psychological,  a  natural  thing 
working  upon  something  given,  like  an  idea  in 
the  mind  or  a  crucifix  before  the  eyes,  and 
which  can  give  the  subject  nothing  more  than 
he  had  before,  but  it  is  an  enhancement  of  the 

"  Underhill :    Mysticism,  p.  432. 

"Thus,  when  the  mystic  eye  is  pure  it  sees  in  God  only 
such  things  as  add  to  the  moral  and  rational  life  of  humanity, 
according  to  the  degree  in  which  the  Absolute  is  infused  in 
the  consciousness.  In  the  end  it  is  Reason  which  must  give 
its  seal  of  approval  to  the  results  of  Inspiration.  In  what 
other  way  could  we  distinguish  those  results  from  the  in- 
ferior suggestions  which  Desire  often  imposes  on  the  con- 
sciousness, under  cover  of  the  Good?"  [Recejac:  The  Bases 
of  the  Mystic  Knowledge,  p.  54.] 

"*  Hilton :    Scale  of  Perfection,  p.  216. 


The  Way  Toward  Gcxi  6i 

subject's  receptivity,  and  the  means  by  which, 
through  the  unification  of  the  whole  person- 
ality, reason,  love  and  will,  new  and  higher 
revelations  may  be  received.  It  is  the  comple- 
tion of  the  effort,  "the  blind  intent  of  stretch- 
ing" toward  God,  the  single  point  of  contact 
with  God  at  the  "apex"  of  the  soul,  the  most 
exalted  act  of  perception  of  which  our  nature 
is  capable. 

What  the  object  is  which  is  perceived,  what 
the  vision  is,  or  what  the  voice  heard,  the  Mys- 
tic who  has  had  this  experience  can  rarely  tell 
us.  Even  St.  Paul,  with  all  his  powers  of  ex- 
pression, hid  behind  the  statement  that  it  was 
not  "lawful"  to  utter  what  he  had  seen  in  the 
third  Heaven.  The  vision  is  sudden,  over- 
whelming, ineffable.  The  Mystic  who  tries  to 
tell  of  it  stumbles  with  the  load  of  the  multi- 
tude of  symbols  he  is  obliged  to  use.  St.  Au- 
gustine says :  "My  mind  withdrew  its  thought 
from  experience,  extracting  itself  from  the 
contradictory  throng  of  sensuous  images  that 
it  might  find  out  what  that  light  was  wherein 
it  was  bathed.  .  .  .  And  thus,  with  the  flash 
of  one  hurried  glance,  it  attained  to  the  vision 
of  That  Which  Is/'  2« 

*  Confessions.  Bock  VII.  Chap.  XVII. 


62      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

*'When  the  soul,  forgetting  itself,  dwells  in 
that  radiant  darkness,  it  leaves  all  its  faculties 
and  all  its  qualities,"  as  St.  Bernard  has  said. 
"And  this  more  or  less  completely,  according 
to  whether  the  soul — whether  in  the  body  or 
out  of  the  body — is  more  or  less  united  to  God. 
This  forgetfulness  of  self  is,  in  a  measure,  a 
transformation  in  God,  who  then  becomes,  in 
a  certain  manner,  all  things  for  the  soul,  as  the 
Scripture  saith.  In  this  rapture  the  soul  dis- 
appears, but  not  entirely.  It  acquires,  it  is 
true,  certain  qualities  of  divinity,  but  does  not 
actually  become  divine.  To  speak  in  the  com- 
mon language,  the  soul  is  rapt  by  the  divine 
power  of  the  resplendent  being  above  its  natu- 
ral faculties  into  the  nakedness  of  the  Noth- 
ing." - 

"My  desire  follows  and  pursues,  but  the 
finite  can  never  attain  to  the  infinite.  Never- 
theless, though  there  remains  an  invincible  di- 
versity between  us,  the  law  of  Jesus  promises 
and  shows  us  the  eternal  fruition  of  his  divin- 
ity. There  are  persons  who  have  an  experi- 
mental knowledge  of  God.  Is  it  any  wonder  if 
joy  completely  breaks  them  down?"  ^^ 

"Suso:   Lt/?,  Chap.  LV. 
*  Ruysbroek :    Mirror j  p.  79. 


The  Way  Toward  God  63 

I  could  quote  many  more  such  passages.  But 
even  their  authors  know  they  could  not  tell 
us.  We  must  go  where  they  have  been,  if  we 
would  see  what  they  saw.  They  cannot  tell 
us,  but  we  need  not  therefore  doubt  the  fact 
they  tell  us  of.  "But  these  most  excellent  and 
divine  workings  in  the  soul  whereby  God  doth 
manifest  himself,  man  can  in  no  wise  speak  or 
even  stammer."  ^^ 

V.  I  hope  you  have  noted  all  along  the  ap- 
proach to  the  fifth  step  in  the  Mystic  Way 
which  we  have  now  reached.  The  Illumination 
is  now  a  fact.  First,  dimly  longed  for,  then 
laboriously  prepared  for,  negatively  by  puri- 
fication and  positively  by  introspection  and 
concentration  and  prayer.  God  is  found  with- 
in. And  as  the  seeing  eye  makes  all  the  world 
it  sees,  yellow  if  jaundiced,  glowing  with 
beauty  if  in  perfect  health,  so  one  of  the  first 
results  of  Illumination  is  the  illumination  of 
the  outer  world  with  the  "light  that  never  was 
on  sea  or  land." 

Eckhart  was  before  Tennyson  in  saying: 
"The  meanest  thing  that  one  knows  in  God — 
for  instance,  if  one  could  understand  a  flower 
as  it  has  its  Being  in  God — that  would  be  a 

"Angela  da  FoUgno:    Book  of  Divine  Cotisolation,  p.  189. 


64      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

higher  thing  than  the  whole  world."  "And 
the  bodily  sight  stinted,  but  the  spiritual  sight 
dwelled  in  my  understanding  and  I  abode  with 
reverent  dread,  joying  in  that  I  saw."  ^'' 

But  more  truly,  as  our  study  has  shown  us, 
must  the  illumination  be  within.    The  Mystic, 

^  Juliana  of  Norwich :  Revelations  of  Divine  Love,  Ch. 
VIII. 

"We  were  saying  then: — If  to  any  the  tumult  of  the  flesh 
were  hushed,  hushed  the  phantasies  of  earth,  and  waters  and 
air;  hushed  too,  the  heavens;  and  the  very  soul  hushed  unto 
herself,  and  pass  beyond  herself  by  not  thinking  of  self; 
hushed  all  dreams  and  imaginary  revelations,  every  language 
and  every  sign,  and  utterly  hushed  whatever  exists  only  to 
pass  away;  since,  if  any  should  hear,  all  these  are  saying, 
'We  made  not  ourselves,  but  He  made  us  that  abideth  for- 
ever'; if,  having  said  this,  they  then  were  to  be  silent,  having 
roused  our  ear  to  Him  who  made  them,  and  He  alone  were  to 
speak,  not  by  them,  but  by  Himself,  that  we  might  hear  His 
word,  not  through  tongue  of  flesh,  not  through  voice  of  angel, 
not  through  sound  of  thunder,  nor  in  the  dark  riddle  of  a 
similitude,  but  were  to  hear  Him  whom  in  these  we  love, 
His  very  self  without  these ;  and  even  as  we  now  stretch  out 
ourselves,  and  in  rapid  thought,  touch  that  Eternal  Wisdom 
that  abideth  over  all,  if  this  could  be  continued,  and  other 
visions  of  kind  far  unlike,  be  withdrawn,  and  this  one  catch 
up,  and  absorb,  and  bury  its  beholder  amidst  inward  joys,  so 
our  unending  life  might  be  such  as  was  that  moment  of  un- 
derstanding for  which  we  sighed :  would  not  this  be  to  enter 
into  the  joy  of  the  Lord?    [St.  Augustine:    Confessions,  Bk. 

IX,  ID.] 

"I  felt  my  face  must  have  shone  like  that  of  Moses.  I  had 
a  general  feeling  of  buoyancy.  It  was  the  greatest  joy  it  was 
ever  my  lot  to  experience."  [Starbuck:  Psychology  of  Re- 
ligion, p.  120.] 


The  Way  Toward  God  65 

by  contemplation,  attains  to  a  "Vision  of  the 
Heart"  which  means  more  to  him  than  any- 
thing he  can  see  with  his  eyes.'^ 

Thus  this  vision  fills  the  whole  being,  for 
some  it  is  large  and  light  and  dazzling,  but  al- 
ways the  personality  to  whom  the  illumination 
comes  is  preserved.  There  is  as  yet  no  absorp- 
tion of  the  finite  by  the  Infinite,  no  "flight  of 
the  alone  to  the  Alone." 

But  the  illumination  varies  with  diflferent 
persons,  and  at  times  even  with  the  same  per- 
son. Sometimes  all  is  light;'®  again,  it  is  a 
knowledge  of  the  deep  things  of  God;"  or 

*  "And  being  thence  admonished  to  return  to  myself,  I  en- 
tered with  Thy  guidance  into  my  inmost  self,  and  I  was  en- 
abled to  do  so,  for  Thou  wert  my  Helper.  And  I  entered 
and  beheld  with  the  eye  of  my  soul  (such  as  it  was),  above 
the  same  eye  of  my  soul,  above  my  mind,  the  Light  Un- 
changeable :  not  this  common  light,  which  shines  for  all 
fiesh ;  nor  as  it  were  a  greater  of  the  same  kind,  as  though 
the  brightness  of  this  should  shine  out  more  and  more 
brightly,  and  with  its  greatness  take  up  all  space.  Not  such 
was  this  light,  but  other,  yea,  far  other  from  all  these.  Nor 
was  it  above  my  soul,  as  oil  is  above  water,  nor  yet  as  heaven 
above  earth :  but  higher  than  I,  because  It  made  me ;  and  I 
below  it,  because  I  was  made  by  It.  He  that  knoweth  the 
Truth,  knoweth  what  that  Light  is;  and  he  that  knoweth  It, 
knoweth  eternity."  [St.  Augustine:  Confessions,  Book  VII, 
Chap.  X.] 

"  Dante :    Paradiso.  XXXIII,  82. 

"  Angela  da  Foligno. 


66      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

again  it  is  small  and  intimate,  as  with  Mother 
Juliana  of  Norwich.^* 

In  every  case,  what  comes  to  the  soul  is  rev- 
elation and  strength  and  enrichment,  and  is 
felt  as  such.  By  them  the  light  is  tested,  the 
true  distinguished  from  the  false,  and  the  soul, 
''humbled  yet  exultant,"  is  made  ready  for  the 
still  further  pursuit  of  its  aim,  communion  with 
God. 

VI.  But  in  between  comes  the  next  stage  in 
the  Mystic  Way,  called  Negation,  or  by  some, 
"The  Dark  Night  of  the  Soul."  Here  again 
we  find  the  state  a  common  one  among  Chris- 
tians, only  here,  as  before,  what  distinguishes 
it  is  its  greater  intensity.  It  is  a  common 
psychological  law,  that  of  reaction.  As  Star- 
buck  says:  *lt  is  one  of  the  best  established 
laws  of  the  nervous  system  that  it  has  periods 
of  exhaustion,  if  exercised  continuously  in  one 
direction,  and  can  only  recuperate  by  havin.q; 
a  period  of  rest."  -^ 

All  good  Christians  have  to  complain  of 
periods  of  "dryness  in  prayer,"  or  of  peculiar 
openness  to  temptation  when  their  spiritual  life 
seems  to  be  at  a  low  ebb.    And  if  the  ordinary 

*  Revelations  of  Divine  Love,  p.  204. 

"  Starbuck :     The  Psychology  of  Religion,  p.  24. 


The  Way  Toward  God  67 

Christian's  weak  experiences  of  God  can  cause 
such  after- fatigue,  what  must  be  the  intensity 
of  the  Mystic's  loss  of  all  he  held  most  dear 
and  counted  on  most  certainly  ?  It  is  not  mere- 
ly to  be  thought  of  as  physical  or  psychological, 
which  are,  of  course,  the  foundations,  but  we 
must  remember  that  there  comes  the  sense  of 
a  real  spiritual  loss.  The  hold  on  God  is  loosen- 
ed, the  dreadful  thought  takes  possession  of 
the  soul  that  it  is  abandoned  of  God,  the  horror 
as  of  those  who  think  they  have  committed  the 
"unpardonable  sin."  This  is  the  utmost  depth 
to  which  the  soul  can  be  brought.  It  was  hard 
enough  to  break  away  from  the  Imperfect  in 
the  Purgative  stage.  It  is  far  harder  now  to 
feel  the  loss  of  the  Perfect.  "My  God,  my  God, 
why  hast  thou  forsaken  me?"  But  in  this  state 
there  are  other  feelings  which  depress  nearly 
as  much.  There  is,  as  I  have  said,  the  enfeeble- 
ment,  the  lassitude,  the  "aridity"  which  is  so 
hard  to  bear — a  spiritual  "ennui" — which  is 
as  real  as  physical  fatigue,  and  this  weakness 
attacks  the  will.  Temptations  seem  to  come  in 
almost  overwhelming  force.  "I  had  thought 
of  all  the  sins,"  says  Mme.  Guyon,  "though 
without  committing  them;  and  these  thoughts 
seemed  to  my  mind  to  be  realities,  because  I 


68      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

felt  that  my  heart  was  occupied  by  created 
things."  And  Santa  Teresa,  in  her  quaint  self- 
depreciation  and  sense  of  humor,  says :  "The 
Devil  then  sends  so  offensive  a  spirit  of  bad 
temper  that  I  think  I  could  eat  people  up." 
These  and  many  others  are  the  forms  by  which 
we  recognize  the  Negative  state.  It  is  not 
clearly  defined,  nor  does  it  appear  always  at 
this  definite  place.  The  alternations  of  hope 
and  fear,  of  light  and  darkness,  have  appeared 
all  along  the  Way.  But  here  the  alternations 
are  more  intense  and  trying.  We  are  drawing 
near  the  close,  the  soul  is  almost  ready  for  the 
last  step,  which  is  Union.  And  here  this  trial 
has  its  moral,  its  spiritual  purpose.  Hereto- 
fore, with  all  its  purification,  the  soul  has  been 
itself;  with  all  its  illumination  and  joy,  it  has 
been  the  self  which  has  enjoyed.  Now  it  must 
give  up  its  very  selfhood,  claiming  nothing, 
owning  nothing,  content,  if  need  be,  to  be  swal- 
lowed up  in  God.  It  is  not  willing  acceptance 
of  a  duty,  as  in  the  second  step.  It  reaches 
deeper,  as  much  as  the  words,  "Not  my  will, 
but  Thine,  be  done,"  are  deeper  than  "I  must 
work  the  works  of  Him  that  sent  me." 

"Although  the  exercise  of  the  will  is  an  im- 
portant element  in  Conversion,  we  are  con- 


The  Way  Toward  God  69 

fronted  with  the  paradox  that  in  the  same  per- 
sons who  strive  toward  the  higher  life,  self  sur- 
render is  often  necessary  before  the  sense  of 
assurance  comes.  The  personal  will  must  be 
given  up.  In  many  cases  relief  persistently 
refuses  to  come  until  the  person  ceases  to  re- 
sist or  to  make  an  effort  in  the  direction  he 
desires  to  go."  ^" 

Thus  Negation,  you  see,  is  really  a  forward, 
not  a  backward,  step.  It  is  the  removing  of 
the  last  vestige  of  self  and  self  will,  which  are 
the  only  remaining  barriers  between  the  soul 
and  God,  and  thus  are  the  last  steps  to  be  taken 
before  the  soul  can  feel  itself  *'oned"  with 
God. 

VII.  It  will  not  be  necessary  here  to  at- 
tempt a  description  at  second  hand  of  what  is 
meant  by  the  union  of  the  soul  with  God  as 
understood  by  the  Mystics.  If  we  cannot  gain 
the  experience  for  ourselves,  there  is  only  one 
way,  and  that  is  to  let  the  Mystics  tell  us,  in 
their  own  words;  and  here  even  their  words 
fail  them;  they  know,  as  we  have  seen,  even 
as  far  as  their  Illumination,  how  feeble  any 
description  is.  As  Myers  has  interpreted  St. 
Paul's  "unlawful": 

"Starbuck:    The  Psychology  of  Religion,  p.  113. 


70      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

"O  could  I  tell  ye  surely  would  believe  it ! 
O  could  I  only  say  what  I  have  seen! 
How  should  I  tell  or  how  can  ye  receive  it. 
How,  till  he  bringeth  you  where  I  have  been?" 

I  would  only  call  your  attention  to  the  com- 
mon error  of  attributing  to  all  Mystics  the 
extreme  view  of  some  regarding  the  absorp- 
tion of  the  soul  in  union,  the  danger  which  so 
many  come  perilously  near,  of  Pantheism. 
Many  expressions,  taken  by  themselves,  lend 
color  to  this  view  and  have  brought  much  dis- 
credit upon  Mysticism.  But  a  careful  study 
will  show  that  it  is  a  mistake.  Such  state- 
ments as  are  condemned  in  the  Mystics  may  be 
found  in  many  theologians  who  are  not  Mys- 
tics. Clement  of  Alexandria  says:  "It  is, 
then,  the  greatest  of  all  lessons  to  know  one's 
self,  for  if  one  knows  himself  he  will  know 
God,  and  knowing  God  he  will  be  made  like 
God."  '' 

''From  him  there  began  the  interweaving  of 
divine  and  human  nature  in  order  that  the  hu- 
man, by  communion  with  the  divine,  may  rise 
to  be  divine,  not  in  Jesus  alone,  but  in  all  those 
who  not  only  believe  but  enter  upon  the  life 

**  Pcedagogus,  Book.  Ill,  Chap.  T. 


The  Way  Toward  God  71 

which  Jesus  taught."  ^-  And  even  Athanasius 
says :  "He  became  flesh  that  we  might  be  made 
capable  of  receiving  Divinity."  Does  Eckhart, 
the  Mystic,  go  any  farther  when  he  writes: 
"Our  Lord  says  to  every  loving  soul,  *I  became 
Man  for  you.  If  you  do  not  become  God  for 
me,  you  do  me  wrong'  "?  What  they  mean  is 
explained  by  the  oft-used  simile  of  Boehme: 

"I  give  you  an  earthly  similitude  of  this. 
Behold  a  bright  flame,  possibly  of  iron,  which 
of  itself  is  dark  and  black.  The  fire  so  pene- 
trateth  and  shineth  through  the  iron  that  it 
giveth  light.  Now  the  iron  does  not  cease  to 
be;  it  is  iron  still ;  and  the  source  (or  property) 
of  the  fire  retaineth  its  own  propriety:  it  doth 
not  take  the  iron  into  it,  but  it  penetrateth 
(and  shineth)  through  the  iron;  and  it  is  iron 
then  as  well  as  before,  fire  in  itself,  and  so  also 
is  the  source  (or  property)  of  the  fire.  In  such 
a  manner  is  the  soul  set  in  the  Deity ;  the  Deity 
penetrateth  through  the  soul  and  dwelleth  in 
the  soul,  yet  the  soul  doth  not  comprehend  the 
Deity,  but  the  Deity  comprehendeth  the  soul, 
but  doth  not  alter  it  (from  being  a  soul),  but 
only  giveth  it  the  divine  source  (or  property) 
of  the  majesty."  ^^ 

"Origen:    Contra  Celsum,  III,  ^. 

"  Boehme :     The  Three-Fold  Life  of  Man,  p.  190. 


72      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

*'To  enjoy  God  without  intermediary :  this  is 
what  the  spirit  longs  for,  naturally  and  super- 
naturally,  with  a  supreme  desire.  But  even  if 
the  divine  union  be  effected  without  medium 
we  must  understand  that  God  and  the  creature 
can  never  be  confounded.  Union  can  never 
become  confusion.  The  distinction  remains 
forever  inviolable."  ^* 

Nay,  so  far  from  Pantheism  is  this  idea  of 
union  that  the  Mystics  claim  that  they  are  in 
this  gaining  and  not  losing;  gaining  complete 
freedom,  gaining  at  last  the  perfection  of  their 
own  personality,  finding  self  by  losing  it.  This 
may  be  paradoxical,  but  it  is  not  pantheistic.^^ 

"The  union  of  the  soul  with  God  is  far  more 
inward  than  that  of  the  soul  and  body. 

"Ruysbroek:     Mirror  of  Eternal  Salvation,  p.  24. 

^  "And  for  that  that  I  would  that  thou  knew  what  manner 
of  working  it  is  that  knitteth  man's  soul  to  God,  and  that 
maketh  it  one  with  Him  in  love  and  accordance  of  will,  after 
the  word  of  Saint  Paul  saying  thus:  Qui  adhccrct  Deo  unus 
spiritus  est  cum  illo;  that  is  to  say:  'Who  so  draweth  near  to 
God,'  as  it  is  by  such  a  reverent  affection  touched  before,  'he 
IS  one  spirit  with  God.'  That  is,  though  all  that  God  and  he 
be  two  and  sere  in  kind,  nevertheless  yet  in  grace  they  are  so 
knit  together  that  they  are  but  one  in  spirit;  and  all  this  is 
for  onehead  of  love  and  accordance  of  will ;  and  in  this  one- 
head  is  the  marriage  made  between  God  and  the  soul,  the 
which  shall  never  be  broken,  though  all  that  the  heat  and  the 
fervour  of  this  work  cease  for  a  time,  but  by  a  deadly  sin." 
[The  Cell  of  Self-Knowledge,  pp.  87-88.I 


The  Way  Toward  God  73 

''Now  I  might  ask,  how  stands  it  with  the 
soul  that  is  lost  in  God?  Does  the  soul  find 
herself  or  not?  To  this  will  I  answer  as  it 
appears  to  me,  that  the  soul  finds  herself  in  the 
point,  where  every  rational  being  understands 
itself  with  itself.  Although  it  sinks  and  sinks 
in  the  eternity  of  the  Divine  Essence,  yet  it 
can  never  reach  the  ground.  Therefore  God 
has  left  a  little  point  wherein  the  soul  turns 
back  upon  itself  and  finds  itself,  and  knows  it- 
self to  be  a  creature."  ^''' 

To  gain  this  union,  which  is  not  confusion, 
there  must  at  least  be  "a  point  of  contact."  To 
the  study  of  that  point  we  will  turn  in  the  next 
lecture  and  ask,  Where  and  how  do  God  and 
man  meet? 

SUGGESTED  READING 
Starbuck:     The   Psychology   of   Religion.     Walter 

Scott,  Ltd.     1900. 
Gr<\nger  :     The  Soul  of  a  Christian.    The  Macmillan 

Co.     1900. 
Steven  :  The  Psychology  of  the  Christian  Soul.  Hod- 

der  &  Stoughton. 
Ames:      The   Psychology    of   Religious   Experience. 

Houghton,  Mifflin  Co.    1910. 
CoE :    The  Spiritual  Life.    Eaton  &  Mains.    1900. 
Underhill:    Mysticism.    E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co.    191 1. 
*Eckhart:    Life,  Light  and  Love,  Inge,  pp.   14-15. 


Ill 

TH^  MEETING  POINT 

We  have  studied  the  mystic  yearning  and 
the ,  mystic  way — man  longing  for  God,  and 
man  seeking  God.  From  all  that  has  been  said 
so  far  it  may  begin  to  look  as  though  we 
thought  that  man,  by  his  searching,  might  find 
out  God,  whereas  we  believe,  with  Job  and 
John,  that  man  cannot/  The  man's  desire  and 
will  must  be  active;  there  is  a  path  for  the 
prodigal  which,  if  he  will  take,  will  lead  him 
home,  but  we  must  never  forget  that  to  God 
belongs  the  priority.^  The  longing  itself  is 
fundamental,  just  because  it  is  implanted. 
Deep  calleth  unto  deep  because  originally  they 
were  one.  The  home  is  behind  the  prodigal 
as  well  as  before  him.  What  he  really  means 
to  say  is,  *'I  will  arise  and  go  back  to  my 
father."    And  so  he  does,  but  not  only  is  the 

*  Job  II  7,  8,  9;  John  i:i8. 

•  Phillips  Brooks :    Sermons,  Vol.  V.  p.  40. 

74 


The  Meeting  Point  75 

father  behind  his  start,  he  runs  to  meet  his  son 
before  he  arrives. 

In  other  words,  here,  at  the  heart  of  Mysti- 
cism, we  meet  the  heart  of  the  mystery  of  God's 
revelation  of  himself.  How  does  man  find 
God?  He  doesn't.  God  finds  him.  There  is 
an  infinite  desire  in  the  Father's  heart  for  his 
child,  and  an  omnipotent  will  to  accomplish 
that  desire.  God  and  man,  then,  are  working 
toward  each  other.  It  is  their  prior  inherent 
relationship  which  creates  the  desire  and  which 
guarantees  its  satisfaction.  We  must  ask  now, 
Where  is  the  Meeting  Point?  The  search 
being  mutual,  man  cannot  be  utterly  passive. 
He  must  at  least  fit  himself  to  meet  God.  The 
steps  we  have  discussed  in  the  last  lecture  have 
this  for  their  purpose,  but  when  we  come  to 
study  them  carefully  we  discover  one  which 
stands  out  as  the  distinctive  mark  of  Mysti- 
cism. This  is  the  fourth  step,  which  is  called 
Contemplation.  In  a  sense,  this  is  an  exer- 
cise of  the  mind,  and  in  another  sense,  as  we 
shall  see,  it  implies  some  faculty  of  the  mind 
which  is  at  least  not  the  logical  faculty  and 
which  is  even  yet  a  mysterious  and  little  known 
part  of  us. 

I  have  said  that  Mysticism  implies  the  whole 


76       The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

man.  Religion,  Christianity,  Mysticism,  all 
are  not  slices  of  life,  but  touch  and  make  de- 
mands on  every  faculty  man  possesses.  I  know 
it  is  unfashionable  to  make  hard  and  fast  dis- 
tinctions, and  yet  the  old-fashioned  names 
Feeling,  Will,  and  Intellect  are  useful  in  dis- 
tinguishing and  discussing  certain  functions  of 
ourselves  about  which  we  can  at  least  think 
separately.  And  certainly  Mysticism  is  not  the 
exercise  of  some  unique  faculty  which  is  not 
common  to  all  men,  but  peculiar  to  a  few  spe- 
cially endowed  souls.  It  is  rather,  as  I  have 
indicated,  the  exercise  of  the  ordinary  man's 
faculties  to  their  utmost;  the  most  intense  de- 
sire, the  strongest  will  and  the  keenest  intel- 
lectual pursuit;  that  is,  it  is  the  combination 
and  co-ordination  of  the  whole  personality. 

In  the  pursuit  of  ends  the  order  is  that  which 
I  have  given.  Even  in  the  ordinary  man's  life, 
the  desire  for  some  good,  the  eager  out-going 
willing  to  get  it,  and  then  the  criticism  and  con- 
trol of  the  mind  is  the  usual  succession.  We 
have  spoken  in  the  first  lecture  of  the  part  de- 
sire plays  in  Mysticism.  It  is  fundamental. 
No  one  who  does  not  long  intensely  can  be  a 
Mystic,  and  the  longing  is  necessary  to  move 
the  will.     As  Aristotle  says:     "The  intellect 


The  Meeting  Point  77 

by  itself  moves  nothing."  Thus  urged  on  by 
desire,  the  will  decides  to  act,  and  "where 
there's  a  will  there's  a  way."  So  in  our  second 
lecture  we  spoke  of  the  Way  by  which  the  will 
endeavors  to  gain  its  end.  But  everything  so 
far  is  preparatory.  The  longing  gives  the  im- 
petus; then  comes  the  glimpse  of  the  goal,  and 
then  the  defining  of  the  purpose  of  the  will 
into  some  channel  commanded  by  God,  the  re- 
adjustment of  the  life  on  a  new  plane  which 
we  call  Conversion.  Repentance  and  Purga- 
tion are  acts  of  the  will.  All  this,  as  I  have 
said,  is  preparatory.  It  is  also  common  to  the 
Christian  life  of  every  man.  It  is  when  we 
come  to  the  middle  step  of  the  Seven  we  have 
described  that  we  find  ourselves  at  the  heart 
of  the  question.  The  secret  of  Mysticism  lies 
here :  it  claims  to  have  discovered  the  meeting 
place  where  God  and  Man  see  face  to  face, 
where  the  union  so  long  sought  and  in  so  many 
directions,  is  alone  found  to  be  real  and  satis- 
fying. While  it  is  still  perfectly  true  that  the 
whole  man,  every  part  and  faculty,  must  be 
employed,  even  to  hands  and  feet,  we  are  to 
think  now  of  this  one  faculty  which  the  Mystic, 
above  all  men,  has  learned  to  train  and  use,  a 
faculty  known  to  be  a  reality  itself  because  by 


78      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

its  use  real  objective  effects  follow.  It  is 
claimed  also  to  be  a  faculty  resident  in  all  men 
and  not  an  endowment  of  a  few  geniuses;  a 
faculty  which  we  need  not  name  yet,  but  which 
we  will  describe  simply  as  that  organ  by  which 
it  seems  that  man  can  get  most  easily  and  most 
perfectly  into  communication  with  God.  It  Is 
this  which  we  must  now  study. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Mystics  say  that  we 
find  God  within  us,  ** Verily  the  kingdom  of 
God  is  within  you,  and  whosoever  knoweth 
himself  shall  find  it."  ^  It  is  in  the  deep  of  our 
own  nature  that  we  feel  God.  Touch  is  the 
primal  sense.  We  don't  look  like  him,  we  don't 
think  like  him,  we  don't  act  like  him,  but  we  do 
feel  him  and  respond  to  his  touch,  where  alone 
spirit  with  spirit  can  meet  in  the  inmost  re- 
cesses of  our  own  nature,  in  that  part  of  us 
we  call  familiarly  our  soul,  and  about  which  we 
know  so  little. 

Men  have  been  trying  in  all  ages  to  find  God. 
They  have  tried  in  many  directions  and  by 
many  methods.  They  have  used  telescopes, 
and  said  that  the  undevout  astronomer  was 
mad.    They  have  used  microscopes  and  got  up 

•Oxyrhynchus  Logia.  lo,  in  Bernhard  Pick.  Paralipo- 
tnena,  p.  37. 


The  Meeting  Point  79 

ingenious  arguments  from  design  in  Nature 
implying  an  ingenious  Designer.  Then  again 
they  have  looked  within  as  far  as  their  brains, 
and  concocted  interesting  and  complicated  in- 
tellectual reasons  why  God  must  exist,  think- 
ing out  proofs  of  a  probable  God;  and  then 
they  have  gone  outside  once  more  and  endeav- 
ored to  find  God  by  doing  his  will,  leading 
lives  of  strenuous  activity,  of  philanthropic 
work,  going  on  crusades  to  redeem  the  city  of 
Jerusalem,  or  plunging  into  social  work. 

Certainly,  as  God  is  everywhere,  we  cannot 
go  anywhere,  inside  or  outside,  without  finding 
glimpses  of  him,  at  least.  But  it  is  as  certainly 
true  that  there  is  no  complete  satisfaction  by 
any  or  all  of  these  ways.  Everything  that 
comes  to  us  from  our  five  senses  or  our  brains, 
or  our  outward  activity,  must  report  at  once 
back  of  these  to  our  inmost  selves — nothing  is 
ours  until  it  touches  our  hearts.  The  eye  sees 
no  God  in  the  farthest  star,  nor  through  the 
strongest  microscope.  It  sees  only  something 
which,  when  it  gets  back  to  the  God  in  the 
heart,  connects  itself  there  with  the  only  true 
idea  of  God,  and  then  carries  back  God  in  the 
"mind's  eye"  to  the  farthest  star  or  to  the 
smallest  atom,  and  sees  then  that  they  belong 


So      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

together  and  prove  each  other.  To  the  man, 
astronomer  or  ploughman,  who  has  felt  no  God 
in  himself,  the  heavens  will  always  seem  empty. 
"As  he  thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he,"  and  so, 
we  may  add,  is  the  whole  universe — to  him. 

Now  while  I  do  not  deny  that  there  are  some 
aspects  of  God  which  may  be  seen  by  the  eye, 
and  some  which  may  be  heard  by  the  ear,  and 
some  which  the  mind  of  man  can  entertain  and 
reason  upon,  I  do  say  that  only  at  some  point 
within  us  can  we  come  into  complete  and  satis- 
factory contact  with  the  Father  of  Spirits. 
There  our  likeness  to  him  seems  to  be  complete. 
It  is  there,  and  there  alone,  that  we  find  our- 
selves made  in  his  image ;  there  he  can  reveal 
himself  to  us;  there  is  the  seat  of  what  we  call 
Inspiration — the  naked  and  unashamed  con- 
versation with  God  in  the  cool  of  the  day  which 
we  wanderers  from  Eden  are  always  trying  to 
regain.  So  while  we  will  not  disparage  the 
other  ways,  we  will  consider  it  as  settled  that 
the  descent  into  our  own  spirits  is  at  the  same 
time  the  ascent  to  God.  For  these  are  the 
words  of  Tertullian,  followed  later  by  Albertus 
Magnus,  who  says:  "To  mount  to  God  is  to 
enter  into  one's  self,  for  he  who  inwardly  en- 
tereth  and  intimately  penetrateth  into  himself 


The  Meeting  Point  St 

gets  above  and  beyond  himself  and  surely 
mounts  up  to  God." 

We  do  not  have  to  ascend  up  into  Heaven  to 
bring  him  down  to  us,  nor  do  we  have  to  go 
down  into  Hell  to  bring  him  up,  because  we 
know  that  the  Lord  is  very  nigh  us,  even  in  our 
hearts.  "The  kingdom  of  God  is  within  you." 
If  there  is  this  omnipresence  about  us  and  with- 
in us  which  we  call  God,  infinite  in  holiness  and 
love,  then  the  contention  of  Mysticism  is  that 
its  point  of  contact  with  us  men  is  at  that  place 
within  us  where  we  finite  bits  of  his  infinitude 
strive  for  holiness  and  yearn  for  love. 

This  is  the  very  commonplace  of  Mysticism. 
It  seems  hardly  necessary  to  quote  in  order  to 
establish  it.  Royce  says:  "According  to 
Mysticism,  Being  is  nothing  beyond  yourself. 
You  even  now  hold  it  within  you  in  your  heart 
of  hearts."  And  Rufus  M.  Jones  says:  "It 
has  been  the  contention  of  Mystics  in  all  ages 
that  God  himself  is  the  ground  of  the  soul,  and 
in  the  depths  of  their  being  all  men  partake  of 
one  central  divine  life."  *  And  Schwab  writes, 
in  his  book  on  Gerson :  "The  whole  effort  of 
Mysticism  is  directed  ...  to  embrace  and 
experience  God,  his  living  presence  in  the  in- 

*  Studit's  in  j]fysliial  Religion,  p.  xxxii. 


82      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

nermost  soul."  While  Schure  says  that  Mysti- 
cism is  "the  art  of  finding  God  in  one's  self." 
To  quote  from  the  Mystics  themselves  would 
be  to  quote  from  all : 

"You  need  not  go  to  heaven  to  see  God,  or 
to  regale  yourself  with  God.  Nor  need  you 
speak  loud,  as  if  He  were  far  away.  Nor  need 
you  cry  for  wings  like  a  dove  so  as  to  fly  to 
Him.  Settle  yourself  in  solitude,  and  you  will 
come  upon  God  in  yourself.  And  then  entreat 
Him  as  your  Father,  and  relate  to  Him  your 
troubles.  Those  who  can  in  this  manner  shut 
themselves  up  in  the  little  heaven  of  their  own 
hearts,  where  He  dwells  Who  made  heaven 
and  earth,  let  them  be  sure  that  they  walk  in 
the  most  excellent  way:  they  lay  their  pipe 
right  up  to  the  fountain."  ^ 

"See  then  the  mercy  and  courtesy  of  Jesus. 
Thou  hast  lost  Him,  but  where?  Soothly  in 
thy  house,  that  is  to  say,  in  thy  soul,  that  if 
thou  hadst  lost  all  thy  reason  of  thy  soul  by 
its  first  sin,  thou  shouldst  never  have  found 
Him  again;  but  He  left  thee  thy  reason,  and 
so  He  is  still  in  thy  soul,  and  never  is  quite  lost 
out  of  it. 

"Nevertheless  thou  art  never  nearer  Him  till 

•Whyte:    Santa  Teresa,  p.  49. 


The  Meeting  Point  83 

thou  hast  found  Him.  He  is  in  thee,  though 
He  be  lost  from  thee ;  but  thou  art  not  in  Him 
till  thou  hast  found  Him.  This  is  His  mercy 
also,  that  He  would  suffer  Himself  to  be  lost 
only  there,  where  He  may  be  found,  so  that 
thou  needst  not  run  to  Rome,  nor  to  Jerusalem 
to  seek  Him  there,  but  turn  thy  thoughts  into 
thy  own  soul  where  He  is  hid,  as  the  Prophet 
saith:  'Truly  Thou  art  the  hidden  God,'  hid 
in  thy  soul,  and  seek  Him  there."  ® 

"And  what  hindereth  thee  that  thou  canst 
neither  see  nor  hear  Him?  Soothly  there  is  so 
much  din  and  noise  in  thy  heart  of  vain 
thoughts  and  fleshly  desires,  that  thou  canst 
neither  see  nor  hear  Him.  Therefore  put 
away  these  unquiet  noises,  and  destroy  the  love 
of  sin  and  vanity,  and  bring  into  thy  heart  the 
love  of  virtues  and  full  charity,  and  then  shalt 
thou  hear  thy  Lord  speak  to  thee." " 

"Where  shall  I  find  God?  In  myself.  That 
is  the  true  Mystical  Doctrine.  But  then  I  my- 
self must  be  in  a  state  for  Him  to  come  and 
dwell  in  me.  This  is  the  whole  aim  of  the  Mys- 
tical Life;  and  all  Mystical  Rules  in  all  times 
and  countries  have  been  laid  down  for  putting 

•  Hilton:    The  Scale  of  Perfection,  pp.  71-72. 
'  Idem,  pp.  72-73. 


84      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

the  soul  into  such  a  state.  That  the  soul  her- 
self should  be  heaven,  that  our  Father  who  is 
in  heaven  should  dwell  in  her,  that  there  is 
something  within  us  infinitely  more  estimable 
than  often  comes  out,  that  God  enlarges  this 
'palace  of  our  soul'  by  degrees,  so  as  to  en- 
able her  to  receive  Himself,  that  thus  He  gives 
her  liberty,  but  that  the  soul  must  give  herself 
up  absolutely  to  Him  for  Him  to  do  this,  the 
incalculable  benefit  of  this  occasional  but  fre- 
quent intercourse  with  the  Perfect:  this  is  the 
conclusion  and  sum  of  the  whole  matter,  put 
into  beautiful  language  by  the  Mystics.  And 
of  this  process  they  describe  the  steps,  and 
assign  periods  of  months  and  years  during 
which  the  steps,  they  say,  are  commonly  made 
by  those  who  make  them  all."  ^ 

This  gathering  up  <A  the  faculties  and  fixing 
them  upon  the  kingdom  of  God  within,  which 
is  God,  is  called  Recollection,  the  recalling  of 
the  wandering  thoughts,  the  focusing  of  the 
scattered  loves,  the  concentration  of  the  wa- 
vering will,  all  upon  "one  thing."  *'But  thou, 
when  thou  prayest,  enter  into  thy  inner  cham- 

•  Cook :  The  Life  of  Florence  Nightingale,  Vol.  II,  pp. 
233-234,  in  her  Preface  to  an  unpublished  Volume  of  Selected 
Readings  from  the  Mystics. 


The  Meeting  Point  85 

ber,  and  having  shut  thy  door,  pray  to  thy 
Father,  who  is  in  secret,  and  thy  Father,  who 
seeth  in  secret  shall  recompense  thee."  ^ 

Now  if  God  is  to  be  found  within  us,  the 
knowledge  we  have  of  Him  must  be  entirely 
personal,  incommunicable  by  any  one  else,  and 
so  directly  and  intuitively  known.  There  must 
be  some  faculty  in  our  nature  which  is  espe- 
cially adapted  to  making  connection  with  God. 
"Eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard" — they 
cannot.  They  connect  with  certain  manifesta- 
tions of  God,  but  the  actual  touch  of  God  him- 

•Matt.  6:6. 

"  'If  the  mind  would  fain  ascend  to  the  height  of  science, 
let  its  first  and  principal  study  be  to  know  itself.'"  [Rich. 
St.  Victor,  Benj.  Minor,  LXXV. 

"  'In  the  book  of  Hidden  Things  it  is  written/  says  Eck- 
hart,  'I  stand  at  the  door  and  knock  and  wait'  .  .  .  thou 
needst  not  seek  Him  here  or  there :  He  is  no  farther  off 
than  the  door  of  the  heart.  There  He  stands  and  waits  and 
waits  until  He  finds  thee  ready  to  open  and  let  Him  in. 
Thou  needst  not  call  Him  from  a  distance;  to  wait  until  thou 
openest  is  harder  for  Him  than  for  thee.  He  needst  thee  a 
thousand  times  more  than  thou  canst  need  Him.  Thy  open- 
ing and  His  entering  are  but  one  moment.  'God,'  he  says, 
in  another  place,  'can  as  little  do  without  us,  as  we  without 
Him.'  Our  attainment  of  the  Absolute  is  not  a  one-sided 
ambition,  but  a  mutual  necessity.  'For  our  natural  will.' 
says  Lady  Julian,  'is  to  have  God,  and  the  good  will  of  God 
is  to  have  us ;  and  we  may  never  cease  from  longing  till  we 
have  Him  in  fulness  of  joy.'"  [Underbill:  Mysticism,  p. 
159.1 


86      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

self  must  come  through  something  in  us — call 
it  what  you  will — made  as  the  eye  and  ear  for 
its  especial  purpose.  This  sense  is  what  the 
Mystic  is  reaching  to,  trying  to  discover,  claim- 
ing that  he  has  discovered,  and  which  he,  hav- 
ing found,  proceeds  to  use  and  develop  and 
perfect  by  the  act,  or  combination  of  acts, 
called  Contemplation.  What  is  this  "sixth 
sense,"  personal  and  interior,  by  which  we  men 
may  and  must  stand  face  to  face  with  God  and 
re-join  our  natures  to  his?  Here  again  we 
must  ask  the  Mystics  themselves.  At  the  start 
we  must  take  their  word  ^"  although  these  lec- 
tures would  not  be  written  if  the  study  were 
only  academic  and  not  in  order  to  find  the 
Mystic  experience  true  for  ourselves,  to  dis- 
cover in  us  that  faculty  and  to  use  it  as  did 
the  Mystics. 

There  has  never  been  an  age  in  any  religion 
in  which  there  were  not  to  be  found  some  lives 
imbued  with  what  we  call  Mysticism — with  a 
sense  of  an  unseen  presence,  and  the  discovery 
and  use  of  a  faculty  in  man  which,  so  man  at 
least  believes,  connects  with  God.  This  point 
of  contact  is  what  makes  religion  possible, 
which  even  Animism  must  feel.     The  Hindu 

'"John  4:  42. 


The  Meeting  Point  87 

religion  is  full  of  it;  it  sings  itself  into  com- 
munion with  the  Unseen  in  many  of  the  hymns 
of  Brahminism.    It  is  the  very  essence  of  what 
Socrates    and    Plato    taught.      The    savage, 
dreaming  of  his  ancestors,  reaching  the  spirit 
world  through  the  dream  world,  both  equally 
real  to  him;  the  Indian  fakir,  wrapping  himself 
into  unconsciousness  and  sitting  day  after  day 
lost,  not  in  thought,  but  in  the  void  where 
thought  is  not;  the  visitations  of  that  spiritual 
monitor  whom  Socrates  called  his  Daemon,— 
are  not  these  experiences  and  types  of  Mysti- 
cism indicating  its  essence,  however  variously 
and  absurdly  each  subject  would  explain  them? 
This   power,    inherent   in   man's   nature,   not 
known  or  used  by  all  but  still  universally  resi- 
dent, which  connects  with  God,  gives  the  sense 
of  oneness,  of  personal  union,  if  not  of  identity 
with  God,  which  is  of  the  essence  of  Mysticism. 
Elijah,   piercing  through  the  whirlwind  and 
the  earthquake  and  the  fire  until  he  hears  God's 
voice  as  *'a  sound  of  gentle  stillness";  Elisha 
opening  the  eyes  of  the  young  man  that  he 
also  might  see  the  vision  of  the  mountain  full 
of  horses  and  chariots  of  fire;  the  prophet's 
inspiration  with  its  clairvoyance  and  clairau- 


88      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

dience;  St.  Paul  coming  to  visions  and  revela- 
tions of  the  Lord,  telling  of  the  experience  he 
had  had  fourteen  years  before,  "how  that  he 
was  caught  up  into  Paradise  and  heard  un- 
speakable words  which  it  is  not  lawful  for  a 
man  to  utter,"  "  I  could  multiply  examples 
were  it  not  superfluous.  What  do  they  show  ? 
A  faculty  in  man  by  which  he  knows  intuitive- 
ly, the  reason  being  in  abeyance,  truths  and 
facts  else  incommunicable.  And  then  the 
Christian  church  does  not  have  to  go  outside 
of  itself,  to  the  Neo-platonists,  to  Plotinus  and 
Jamblichus,  to  trace  the  later  workings  of  this 
same  faculty.  They  belong  in  the  church, — 
not  only  to  Montanism  and  the  monkish  Om- 
phalopsychites  and  Hesychasts,  but  to  less  ex- 
aggerated and  more  orthodox  forms.  Igna- 
tius says :  "Some  in  the  church  most  certainly 
have  a  knowledge  of  things  to  come.  Some 
have  visions,  others  utter  prophecies  and  heal 
the  sick  by  laying  on  of  hands ;  and  others  still 
speak  in  many  tongues,  bringing  to  light  the 
secret  things  of  men  and  expounding  the  mys- 
teries of  God."  Tatian  declares  that  "our  vir- 
gins at  the  distaff  utter  divine  oracles,  see  vis- 
ions and  sing  the  holy  words  that  are  given 

"  II  Cor.  12 :4, 


The  Meeting  Point  89 

them";  and  Tertullian  and  many  more  of  the 
Fathers  give  the  same  testimony. 

Now  my  point  is  this:  that  these  are  all 
manifestations  of  the  principle  upon  which 
Mysticism  rests,  and  that  because  Mysticism 
is  always  the  same  (as  Harnack  says)  we  are 
here  j^ctting  hold  of  facts  which  only  to-day 
are  having  light  thrown  on  them  by  the  ad- 
vances of  a  scientific  psychology.  It  matters 
not  that  these  psychic  phenomena  were  misun- 
derstood at  the  time.  We  are  not  very  clear 
about  them  even  to-day.  As  well  might  we  dis- 
credit astronomy  because  it  had  its  origin  in 
astrology,  or  chemistry  because  it  was  preceded 
by  alchemy.  All  I  claim  is  that  these  are  facts, 
and  that  the  same  facts  have  persisted,  and 
that  they  are  the  basis  of  whatever  truth  and 
power  there  may  be  in  Mysticism.  I  am  not 
concerned,  as  I  said,  with  the  theologies  men 
have  built  on  these  facts.  The  mystical  the- 
ologies are  what  have  brought  Mysticism  into 
disrepute  in  all  ages.  It  is  interesting  even  to- 
day to  study  the  old  astrologers.  Averroes  and 
Paracelsus  are  worthy  of  more  attention  than 
they  receive,  but  if  we  wish  to  know  the  truth 
about  the  heavens  we  go  to  the  latest  and  best 


go      The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

treatise  on  astronomy,  and  that  not  only  ex- 
plains to  us  the  stars  but  incidentally  explains 
the  old  astrologers  too.  We  do  not  need  to  be- 
lieve all  that  Plotinus  and  Dionysius  the  Are- 
opagite  have  to  say  about  their  Mysticism  even 
could  we  understand  it.  We  accept  them  as 
Mystics  because  they  undergo  the  same  ex- 
perience and  build  their  theories  on  the  same 
facts  which  once  gave  insight  and  foresight 
to  the  prophets,  illumined  St.  Paul  on  the  way 
to  Damascus  and  St.  John  in  Patmos  when  he 
was  in  the  spirit  on  the  Lord's  Day,  and  is  to 
be  seen  supporting,  guiding  and  inspiring 
Santa  Teresa  and  Tauler,  Fenelon  and  Fox. 

To  come  closer  to  the  subject  before  us,  let 
me  show  you  what  the  Mystics  call  this  faculty 
before  we  bring  it  to  the  bar  of  modern  psy- 
chology. Plotinus  is  as  far  back  as  we  need 
to  go.  He  calls  this  faculty  ''another  intellect 
different  from  that  which  reasons  and  is  de- 
nominated rational."  ^^  The  pseudo-Dionysius, 
describing  the  mystical  adept,  says:  "Then  is 
he  delivered  from  all  seeing  and  being  seen, 
and  passes  into  the  truly  mystical  darkness  of 
ignorance,  where  he  excludes  all  intellectual 
apprehensions  and  abides  in  the  utterly  Im- 

"  Ennead  VI,  p- 


The  Meeting  Point  9I 

palpable  and  Invisible."  '^  St.  Francis  de  Sales, 
in  his  Treatise  on  the  Love  of  God,  writing-  of 
"The  Rest  of  the  recollected  soul  is  its  Be- 
loved," says:  "It  is  this  sweet  calm  which  S. 
Teresa  calls  the  prayer  of  quietude,  which  is 
much  the  same  as  what  she  elsewhere  calls  a 
sleep  of  the  active  powers."  ^^ 

The  author  of  the  "Theologia  Germanica" 
gives  about  the  most  important  statement  of 
all:  "Now  the  created  soul  of  man  hath  also 
two  eyes;  the  one  has  the  power  of  seeing  into 
eternity,  the  other  of  seeing  into  time  and  the 
creatures,  of  perceiving  how  they  differ  from 
each  other,  of  giving  life  and  needful  things 
to  the  body  and  ordering  and  governing  it  for 
the  best.  But  these  two  eyes  of  the  soul  of 
man  cannot  both  perform  their  work  at  once, 
but  if  the  soul  shall  see  with  the  right  eye, 
then  the  left  eye  must  close  itself  and  refrain 
from  working,  and  be  as  though  it  were  dead. 
Or  if  the  left  eye  is  fulfilling  its  office  toward 
outward  thin^^s, — that  is,  holding  conversa- 
tion with  time  and  the  creatures,  then  must  the 
right  eye  be  hindered  in  its  working,  that  is, 
in  its  contemplation."  ^° 

"Dionysius:    Mystic  Theology,  Cap.  I.  Section  III. 
"  De  Sales :    Of  the  Love  of  God.  Bk.  VI.  Chap.  VIIT. 
"  Theoloflia  Germanica.  D.  20. 


92       The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

This  is  what  the  Mystics  themselves  say,  not 
of  the  theory  but  of  the  facts  and  the  actual 
processes : 

"Mystical  knowledge  proceeds  not  from  Wit,  but 
from  Experience ;  it  is  not  invented,  but  proved ;  not 
read,  but  received ;  and  is  therefore  most  secure  and 
efficacious,  of  great  help,  and  plentiful  in  fruit.  It 
enters  not  into  the  Soul  by  the  ears,  nor  by  the  con- 
tinual reading  of  books,  but  by  the  abundant  infusion 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  Whose  Grace,  with  most  delightful 
intimacy,  i-s  communicated  to  the  meek  and  lowly." 
[Molinos:     The  Spiritual  Guide,  p.  50.] 

"Grace  never  comes  in  the  intelligence  or  in  the 
will.  If  it  could  come  in  the  intelligence  or  in  the 
will,  the  intelligence  and  the  will  would  have  to  tran- 
scend themselves.  On  this  a  master  says :  There  is 
something  secret  about  it ;  and  thereby  he  means  the 
spark  of  the  soul,  which  alone  can  apprehend  God. 
The  true  union  between  God  and  the  soul  takes  place 
in  the  little  spark,  which  is  called  the  spirit  of  the  soul. 
Grace  unites  not  to  any  work.  It  is  an  indwelling  and 
a  living  together  of  the  soul  in  God."  [Eckhart: 
Light,  Life  and  Love.    Inge,  pp.  4-5.] 

"The  union  of  the  soul  with  God  is  far  more  inward 
than  that  of  the  soul  and  body.  Now  I  might  ask. 
how  stands  it  with  the  soul  that  is  lost  in  God  ?  Does 
the  soul  find  herself  or  not?  To  this  will  I  answer 
as  it  appears  to  me,  that  the  soul  finds  herself  in  the 
point,  where  every  rational  being  understands  itself 
with  itself.    Although  it  sinks  and  sinks  in  the  eternity 


The  Meeting  Point  93 

of  the  Divine  Essence,  yet  it  can  never  reach  the 
j^round.  Therefore  God  has  left  a  little  point  wherein 
the  soul  turns  back  upon  itself  and  finds  itself,  and 
knows  itself  to  be  a  creature."  [Eckhart:  Light, 
Life  and  Love.    Inge,  pp.  14-15.] 

W^ill  you  bear  with  me  a  little  farther  in  my 
quotations,  which  1  think  necessary  that  I  may 
still  further  explain  myself  and  supplement 
these  old  names  by  more  modern  authorities? 
Lotze,  in  the  ''Alicrocosmus,"  writes:  "With- 
in us  lurks  a  world  whose  form  we  but  imper- 
fectly apprehend,  and  whose  working — when 
in  particular  phases  it  comes  under  our  obser- 
vation— surprises  us  with  foreshadowings  of 
unknown  depths  in  our  own  being."  ^^  And 
Ribot  says:  "The  ordinary  conscious  person- 
ality is  only  a  feeble  i)ortion  of  the  whole  psy- 
chological personality."  ^"  I  quote  again  from 
Max  MiJller,  in  his  "Science  of  Religion,"  who 
writes  :  "There  is  in  man  a  faculty  which  I 
call  simply  the  faculty  of  apprehending  the 
Infinite,  not  only  in  religion  but  in  all  things, 
a  power  independent  of  sense  and  reason,  a 
power  in  a  certain  sense  contradicted  by  sense 
and  reason,  yet  I  suppose  a  very  real  power  if 

^^  Microcosmus,  Bk.  I.  Chap.  I.  Vol.  I.  p.  13. 
"Ribot:    Les  Maladies,  iilc,  \h  \22. 


94       The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

we  see  how  it  has  held  its  own  from  the  be- 
ginning of  the  world;  how  neither  sense  nor 
reason  have  been  able  to  overcome  it,  while  it 
alone  is  able  to  overcome  both  reason  and 
sense."  ^*  As  William  James  says:  "Our  nor- 
mal waking  consciousness,  as  we  call  it,  is  but 
one  special  type  of  consciousness,  whilst  all 
about  it,  parted  from  it  by  the  filmiest  of 
screens,  there  lie  potential  forms  of  conscious- 
ness entirely  different.  We  may  go  through 
life  without  suspecting  their  existence,  but  ap- 
ply the  requisite  stimulus  and  at  a  touch  there 
they  are,  in  all  their  completeness,  definite 
types  of  mentality  which  probably  somewhere 
have  their  field  of  application  and  adaptation. 
No  account  of  the  universe  in  its  totality  can 
be  final  which  leaves  these  other  forms  of  con- 
sciousness quite  disregarded.  How  to  regard 
them  is  the  question, — for  they  are  so  discon- 
tinuous with  ordinary  consciousness.  Yet  they 
may  determine  attitudes,  though  they  cannot 
furnish  formulas,  and  open  a  region  though 
they  fail  to  give  a  map."  ^^ 

"Quoted  in  Bjerregaard,  Lectures  on  Mysticism,  p.  12. 

"  James :     Varieties  of  Religious  Experiences,  p.  388. 

"The  spiritual  is  a  distinct  sphere  of  the  human  soul  mov- 
ing from  within,  having  its  own  organ  of  knowledge,  its  own 
objects,  its  own  method,  its  own  results.    As  the  senses  are  a 


The  Meeting  Point  95 

But  we  really  need  no  fortifying  with  au- 
thorities. Our  own  lives  furnish  us  with  bet- 
fundamental  endowment  of  the  being,  looking  out  to  the  ex- 
ternal world,  so  the  personality  has  faculties,  moral  and 
spiritual,  which  have  immediate  aflinities  with  the  spiritual 
world,  which  receive  impressions  from  that  world,  and  which 
become  powers  in  the  life  through  these  impressions.  The 
sense  of  the  right,  the  thirst  for  a  chief  good,  the  instinct  of 
dependence,  the  strong  propension  of  the  reason  to  find  a 
moral  and  religious  meaning  girdling  the  course  of  events, 
are — roughly  and  popularly  speaking — elements  of  that  spirit- 
ual side. 

"Now  though  these  powers  use  reason  in  their  latter  stages 
and  can  always  vindicate  themselves  in  the  court  of  reason, 
they  do  not  work  by  reasoning.  They  leap  instinctively  into 
exercise  by  the  contact  of  the  personality  with  another  and 
higher  personality."  [Smith:  The  Magnetism  of  Christ,  p. 
181.] 

"And,  in  like  manner,  it  is  maintained  there  is  an  appre- 
hension of  God  and  divine  things  that  is  independent  of  that 
which  comes  to  us  in  the  form  of  propositions  and  doctrines, 
and  which  may  be  possessed  in  fullest  measure  by  the  man 
who  could  not  define  or  prove  a  single  article  of  a  theologi- 
cal creed.  The  investigation  of  the  evidences,  the  analysis  and 
systematic  development  of  the  doctrines  of  religion,  may  in- 
deed furnish  fit  occupation  for  the  highest  intellects;  but  it 
is  by  no  such  process  that  the  essence  of  religion  wins  its 
way  into  the  soul.  It  comes  upon  the  spirit  not  as  a  proposi- 
tion which  it  has  proved,  but  as  a  living  reality  which  it  im- 
mediately and  intuitively  perceives,  as  a  heavenly  melody  fall- 
ing on  the  ear,  as  the  splendour  of  an  infinite  loveliness  break- 
ing on  the  eye  of  faith."     [Caird :     University  Sermons,  p.  16.] 

"Of  all  things  good  and  fair  and  holy  there  is  a  spiritual 
cognizance  which  precedes  and  is  independent  of  that  knowl- 
edge which  the  understanding  conveys."  [Caird  :  University 
Sermons,  p.  14.] 


96       The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

ter  proofs.  What  we  call  our  mind  is  really 
made  up  of  two  parts.  The  one  is  the  drudge 
and  mentor  and  director  which  we  know  and 
use,  which  gets  tired  and  dies;  and  the  other 
the  immeasurably  vaster  portion  which  we  sel- 
dom see  and  only  a  little  of  tener  guess  we  have. 
Yet  it  is  this  unconscious  part  which  is  the 
very  tossing  ocean  which  feeds  the  little  foun- 
tain of  our  conscious  mind — full  of  wrecks 
and  argosies  and  dead  faces  and  the  traces  of 
vanished  generations,  able  to  connect  with  the 
same  ocean  in  other  men,  able,  so  we  have  seen 
in  history  and  philosophy — nay,  do  we  not 
know  this  also  from  dear  experience? — able  to 
connect  with  God.  For  have  we  not  known 
some  supreme  moment,  under  great  emotion 
of  grief  or  joy,  of  intense  excitement,  of  fer- 
vent prayer,  when  what  we  call  self,  with  all 
its  self-consciousness  and  self-carefulness, 
with  its  hoard  of  petty  maxims  reasoned  out 
of  a  single  petty  experience — disappears  and  a 
new  power  comes  above  the  threshold  of  con- 
sciousness and  takes  control  ?  And  when  it  has 
sunk  once  more  below  the  threshold  we  only 
then  discover  the  bleeding  wound  or  the  evi- 
dence of  some  superhuman  exertion  or  the 
sense  of  a  presence  which  leaves  us  tingling. 


The  Meeting  Point  97 

saying,  "Truly  God  was  in  this  place  and  1 
knew  it  not." 

I  think  I  have  said  enough  to  support  my 
point  that  we  have  here  the  peculiarity  which 
distinguishes  Mysticism  from  those  forms  of 
religion  which  we  call  the  dogmatic  or  intel- 
lectual, or  which  we  call  the  ritualistic  or  in- 
stitutional. 

Beyond  or  underneath  the  usual  course  of 
the  Christian  life  there  is  in  Mysticism  the  de- 
velopment and  use  of  a  faculty  which  works 
best  when  both  mind  and  will  are  in  abeyance, 
and  which  seems  to  have  the  power  of  receiving 
intimations  directly  from  God.  The  Mystic 
is  thus  in  all  respects  like  any  other  Christian, 
plus  the  use  of  this  organ  and  plus  also  certain 
rewards  or  punishments  which  flow  from  its 
use,  such  as  unusual  nervous  sensitiveness,  ex- 
tremes of  joy  or  sorrow,  an  abnormal  liability 
to  visions  and  hallucinations.  These  are  not 
Mysticism,  but  its  by-products. 

We  have  laid  aside  the  emotions  and  the  will. 
We  have  felt  that  they  were  preliminary  to 
Mysticism  proper,  though  parts  of  its  process. 
And  we  have  asked  the  Mystics  to  tell  us  what 
they  thought  was  their  secret.  And  they  have 
said,  with  a  perfect  and  positive  unanimity,  that 


98       The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

they  used,  in  meeting  God,  a  faculty  which  they 
could  cultivate,  which  seemed  to  them  to  be 
the  deepest  and  truest  part  of  their  personality, 
and  that  this  faculty  seemed  to  them  some- 
thing distinct  from  their  intellect,  something 
which  did  not  use  logical  processes ;  that  by  it 
they  gained  the  real  knowledge,  but  gained  it 
not  by  ratiocination  but  by  intuition;  that  for 
its  highest  working  this  faculty  needed  that 
the  ordinary  activities  of  the  brain  be  stopped, 
and  then  that  through  it  came  to  them  a  knowl- 
edge of  God,  generally  ineffable  and  inde- 
scribable, but  having  enough  body  to  it  to  be 
afterward  presented  to  their  own  intellect  to 
be  reasoned  on  in  the  usual  way.  All  I  can 
say  regarding  this  is  that  further  definition  is 
at  present  beyond  our  powers.  This  is  a  prac- 
tical study  and  for  our  purpose  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  enter  the  much-debated  field  of  the  sub- 
conscious. As  yet  we  know  too  little  about  it. 
Few  psychologists  would  deny  its  existence. 
They  differ  very  widely  in  their  definition  and 
valuation  of  it.  We  are  here  concerned  only 
with  the  fact:  That  by  the  use  of  a  faculty 
which  is  not  the  logical  mind,  and  is  active 
mostly  when  that  is  quiescent,  certain  truths 
are   received    and    a    positive    spiritual    com- 


The  Meeting  Point  gg 

munion  with  God  established.  I  believe  that 
the  seat  of  this  faculty  lies  back  in  this  mys- 
terious field  we  call  the  sub-consciousness.  It 
is  a  large  field  and  it  contains  much  which  is 
both  useful  and  harmful.  It  is  that  penumbra 
of  the  intellect  which  Bergson  calls  Intuition. 
We  are  to  use  our  minds  to  try  the  spirits, 
whether  they  be  of  God,  but  I  see  no  reason  to 
doubt,  from  its  eflfects,  that  something  within 
us  is  especially  formed  to  meet  with  God,  and 
that,  like  every  other  organ,  it  may  be  culti- 
vated. The  only  proof  that  we  have  it  is  by 
using  it  ourselves,  and  this  each  one  of  us 
must  do  if  he  would  know.  We  know  best  that 
we  have  eyes  by  seeing  things  with  them.  As 
Hocking  says  truly:  "The  misinterpretation 
of  Mysticism  here  in  question  is  due  to  the  fact 
that  what  is  a  psychological  report  (and  a  true 
one)  is  taken  as  a  metaphysical  statement  (and 
a  false  one)."  ^^ 

Professor  James,  than  whom  is  no  higher 
authority,  says: 

"The  subconscious  self  is  nowadays  a  well-accred- 
ited psychological  entity;  and  I  believe  that  in  it  we 
have    exactly    the    mediating    term    required.     Apart 
from  all  religious  considerations,  there  is  actually  and 
*•  Mind,  No.  8r.  p.  42. 


loo     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

literally  more  life  in  our  total  soul  than  we  are  at  any 
time  aware  of.  The  exploration  of  the  transmarginal 
field  has  hardly  yet  been  seriously  undertaken,  but 
what  Mr.  Myers  said  in  1892  in  his  essay  on  the 
Subliminal  Consciousness  is  as  true  as  when  it  was 
first  written:  'Each  of  us  is  in  reality  an  abiding 
psychical  entity  far  more  extensive  than  he  knows, — 
an  individuality  which  can  never  express  itself  com- 
pletely through  any  corporeal  manifestation.  The  Self 
manifests  through  the  organism;  but  there  is  always 
some  part  of  the  Self  unmanifested ;  and  always,  as  it 
seems,  some  power  of  organic  expression  in  abeyance 
or  reserve.'  Much  of  the  content  of  this  larger  back- 
ground against  which  our  conscious  being  stands  out 
in  relief  is  insignificant.  Imperfect  memories,  silly 
jingles,  inhibit! ve  timidities,  'dissolutive'  phenomena 
of  various  sorts,  as  Myers  calls  them,  enter  into  it  for 
a  large  part.  But  in  it  many  of  the  performances  of 
genius  seem  also  to  have  their  origin ;  and  in  our  study 
of  conversion,  of  mystical  experiences,  and  of  prayer, 
we  have  seen  how  striking  a  part  invasions  from  this 
region  play  in  the  religious  life.''  ^^ 

May  I  interrupt  here  for  one  moment  to 
make  clearer  my  own  position,  that  I  may  not 
be  more  misunderstood  than  is  necessary?  I 
am  reminded  of  one  of  the  clearest  definitions 
of  Mysticism  among  the  many  that  are  to  be 
found  to-day.    It  is  in  the  Century  Dictionary : 

''James:     Varieties  of  Religions  Experience,  p.  511. 


The  Meeting  Point  loi 

"Mysticism  and  Rationalism  represent  oppo- 
site poles  of  theology,  Rationalism  regarding 
the  reason  as  the  highest  faculty  of  man  and 
the  sole  arbiter  in  all  matters  of  religious  doc- 
trine; Mysticism,  on  the  other  hand,  declaring 
that  spiritual  truth  cannot  be  apprehended  by 
the  logical  faculty,  nor  adequately  expressed 
in  terms  of  the  understanding." 

And  yet  while  this  definition  is  clear  as  far 
as  it  goes,  and  makes  a  perfectly  true  distinc- 
tion, it  is  very  incomplete,  in  that  it  gives  noth- 
ing to  supply  the  defect  of  the  logical  faculty. 
If  ''spiritual  truth  cannot  be  apprehended  by 
the  logical  faculty,"  how  can  it  be  apprehend- 
ed? And  this  is  the  very  secret  of  Mysticism, 
which  ought  to  be  told,  even  in  a  dictionary. 
The  definition  only  tells  us  what  Mysticism 
denies.  That's  why  it's  so  clear!  Add  these 
words,  ''that  truth  can  be  also  received  and 
understood  by  some  function  of  the  subliminal 
self,"  call  it  Intuition,  or  whatever  you  please, 
and  we  have  at  least  made  the  definition  fuller 
and  more  correct,  even  though  the  claim  of  the 
Mystic  should  prove  to  be  unfounded. 

That  this  is  the  claim  of  the  Mystic  and  so 
necessary  to  an  understanding  of  him,  we  have 


102     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

surely  seen.     But  its  relation  to  Rationalism 
may  not  be  so  clear. 

Mysticism  is  opposite  to  Rationalism  but  not 
its  opponent.  Both  are  necessary  to  the  full 
and  perfect  religion  of  this  earth.  But  noth- 
ing is  commoner  than  to  see  the  two  set  at 
variance.  Nothing  is  commoner  than  to  see 
Mysticism  classed  with  mere  emotionalism. 
The  subliminal  self  is  the  seat  of  the  emotions, 
as  of  the  true  memory.  But  it  has  a  mental 
life  of  its  own.  "It  is  not  the  passive,  unrea- 
soning and  irresponsive  automaton  which  peo- 
ple have  believed  it  to  be."  "  The  difficulty, 
you  see,  is  not  the  old  one,  between  heart  and 
head,  between  feeling  and  knowledge,  but  be- 
tween two  kinds  of  knowledge.  And  both  are 
essential,  the  knowledge  which  comes  through 
Scholasticism  and  the  knowledge  which  comes 
through  Mysticism.  The  one  is  mediate  and 
proceeds  by  logic  indirectly;  the  other  is  imme- 
diate and  proceeds  deductively  from  a  prior 
suggestion.  This  is  not  the  time  to  discuss 
their  relative  merits;  there  is  certainly  a  dif- 
ference in  priority.  But  you  will  pardon  me 
if  I  add,  that  which  is  not  called  for  by  my 
argument,  that  God's  nature  seems  more  akin 

'*  Hudson :    The  Law  of  Psychic  Phenomena,  p.  32. 


The  Meeting  Point  103 

to  the  mystical  side  of  man's  nature.  He  is 
Love,  not  Logic.  Omniscience  does  not  ratioc- 
inate, it  simply  knows,  and  the  soul,  made  in 
the  image  of  God,  meets  God  intuitively  (how- 
ever it  may  rationalize  about  Him  later),  so 
that  we  must  ask  it  first,  not  "are  your  logical 
processes  correct?"  but  simply,  ''have  you  seen 
aright?    Have  you  actually  felt  God?"  " 

"  "Now,  undoubtedly,  religious  beliefs,  new  and  old,  often 
do  present  themselves  to  the  minds  of  individuals  in  an  intui- 
tive and  unaccountable  way.  They  may  subsequently  be  justi- 
fied at  the  bar  of  Reason :  and  yet  Reason  might  never  have 
discovered  them  for  herself.  They  would  never  have  come 
into  the  world  unless  they  had  presented  themselves  at  first 
to  some  mind  or  other  as  intuitions,  inspirations,  immediate 
Revelations:  and  yet  (once  again)  the  fact  that  they  so  pre- 
sent themselves  does  not  by  itself  prove  them  to  be  true." 
[Rashdall:    Philosophy  and  Religion,  p.  136.] 

"But  just  as  our  primary  wide-awake  consciousness  throws 
open  our  senses  to  the  touch  of  things  material,  so  it  is  logi- 
cally conceivable  that  if  there  be  higher  spiritual  agencies 
that  can  directly  touch  us,  the  psychological  condition  of  their 
doing  so  might  be  our  possession  of  a  subconscious  region, 
which  alone  should  yield  access  to  them.  The  hubbub  of  the 
waking  life  might  close  a  door  which,  in  the  dreamy  Sublim- 
inal, might  remain  ajar  or  open."  [James:  The  Varieties  of 
Religious  Experience,  p.  242.] 

"The  notion  of  a  subconscious  self  certainly  ought  not  at 
this  point  of  our  inquiry  to  be  held  to  exclude  all  notion  of 
a  higher  penetration.  If  there  be  higher  powers  able  to  im- 
press us,  they  may  get  access  to  us  only  through  the  sublim- 
inal door."     [Ibid.,  p.  243.] 

"Disregarding  the  over-beliefs,  and  confining  ourselves  to 
what  is  common  and  generic,  we  have  in  the  fact  that  the 


104     ^^^  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

And  so  we  come  back  to  the  heart  of  the  mat- 
ter. Leaving  for  the  last  lecture  any  practical 
lessons  we  may  have  found,  let  us  remind  our- 
selves of  the  point  we  have  reached,  the  meet- 
ing point  with  God. 

The  Mystic,  that  he  may  see  God,  get  any 
the  least  glimpse  of  him,  must  prepare  himself, 
and  having  stripped  from  him  everything  that 
would  hinder  of  sight,  hearing,  touch,  even 
thought,  then  he  comes  to  the  next  and  most 
important  step  of  all,  that  which  stamps  him 
as  soon  as  he  takes  it,  as  a  Mystic,  different 
in  this  respect  from  other  creatures;  he  sits 
down  in  this  utter  nakedness  and  in  silence  and 
without  effort  at  last  waits  for  God  to  speak 
in  the  "still  small  voice,"  or  to  show  himself 
in  some  vision  or  to  give  some  touch  upon  his 
heart  by  which  he  may  be  known.  It  is  the 
concentration  of  all  the  powers  upon  "one 
point."  It  is  the  "inward  look."  In  quiet  and 
in  silence  the  soul  now  attends  intently.  By 
concentration  all  the  little  sounds  have  been 
stilled.  The  efforts  of  Recollection  to  bring 
the  mind  and  heart  and  will  into  harmony  have 

conscious  person  is  continuous  with  a  wider  self  through 
which  saving  experiences  come,  a  positive  content  of  reli- 
gious experience,  which  it  seems  to  me,  is  literally  and  ob- 
jectively true,  as  far  as  it  goes."    [Ibid.,  p.  51S] 


The  Meeting  Point  105 

succeeded  and  so  relax.  The  soul  is  at  peace. 
The  busy  thoughts  are  hushed,  the  unruly  will 
is  silenced.  The  attitude  is  that  of  listening. 
No  longer  is  it  content  to  do.  It  finds  its  satis- 
faction in  being,  and  its  being  becomes  one 
great  receptivity.  It  can  say  now,  "Speak, 
Lord,  for  thy  servant  heareth"  and  not  mis- 
take heavenly  sounds  for  earthly.  It  is  in  the 
ante-room  of  the  Presence.  The  next  move  is 
God's. 

SUGGESTED  READING 

Du   Prel:    The  Philosophy   of  Mysticism.     2   vols. 

George  Redway.     1889. 
Recejac:    The  Bases  of  the  Mystic  Knowledge.    C. 

Scribner's  Sons.    1899. 
James:    The     Varieties    of    Religious    Experience. 

Longmans,  Green  &  Co.   1902. 
Hocking  :  The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Experi- 
ence.    Yale  University  Press.     1912. 
Jastrow:  The  Sub-conscious.     Houghton,   Mifflin  & 

Co. 
Delacroix:  Etudes  d'Histoire  et  de  Psychologie  du 

Mysticisme.     Felix  Alcan.     Paris,  1908. 
Ribot:    Essay   on   the   Creative   Imagination.     Open 

Court  Publishing  Co.    1906. 
Hudson:  The  Law  of  Psychic  Phenomena.     A.  C. 

McClurg  &  Co.   1899. 


IV 


ST.    FRANCIS    OF    ASSISI,    HEINRICH    SUSO   AND 
MOTHER  JULIAN  OF  NORWICH 

Having  discussed  in  our  previous  chapters 
the  Mystic  Way,  and  tried  to  account  for  it 
psychologically,  it  will  be  interesting,  I  think, 
bearing  in  mind  what  we  have  learned,  to  pro- 
ceed now  to  study  these  processes  in  the  lives 
of  some  sample  Mystics  and  see  how  they  bear 
out  in  practice  what  we  have  been  studying  the- 
oretically. 

A  history  of  Mysticism  is  an  impossibility. 
It  has  no  history.  It  is  a  religious  exercise 
which  occurs  sporadically  and  unexpectedly 
throughout  history.  It  is  an  emergence,  not 
an  evolution.  It  appears,  like  Melchisedec, 
without  a  genealogy  but  with  a  blessing.  For 
certain  purposes,  of  course,  it  is  helpful  to 
study  the  Mystics  chronologically,  but  in  what- 
ever century  we  find  them  we  will  find  St.  Mar- 
tin's words  true :  "All  Mystics  speak  the  same 
1 06 


St.  Francis — Suso — Mother  Julian  107 

language  and  come  from  the  same  country." 
Mysticism  is  such  a  personal  thing,  relates 
so  much  more  to  eternity  than  to  time,  that  the 
student  who  looks  to  history,  as  he  should,  to 
discover  causes  and  relations,  to  see  the  order- 
ly growth  of  ideas  and  institutions,  should  be 
told  that  here  he  must  not  expect  an  ordered 
evolution.  Sometimes  the  Mystics  appear  in 
groups,  but  just  as  often  they  are  lonely  as 
well  as  unexpected  figures  in  the  pages  of  his- 
tory. There  have  been  periods  when  we  can 
see  an  unusual  outpouring  of  the  mystical 
spirit,  and  we  may  see,  or  say,  that  such  is  due 
to  a  reaction  against  over-intellectualism  or 
against  some  tight  ecclesiastical  organization. 
Sometimes  a  low  ethical  order  of  things  or  a 
time  of  spiritual  dryness  will  seem  to  cause  a 
Mystic  revival,  but  just  as  often  it  appears 
with  no  apparent  reason. 

And  so  we  may  the  more  readily  omit  any 
historical  presentation,  because  our  purpose  is 
practical  and  we  can  be  helped  more  by  select- 
ing some  figures  of  especial  interest  and  study- 
ing them,  because  they  are  typical  of  the  life 
and  its  process  which  we  have  been  trying  to 
describe. 

It  is  embarrassing  to  have  to  choose,  and  any 


lo8     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

choice  will  seem  arbitrary,  but  I  can  speak 
better  of  those  who  interest  me  most,  and  of 
all  these  I  think  we  may  gain  a  wider  under- 
standing of  the  subject  if  we  take  two  men  and 
one  woman,  and  choose  them  from  different 
countries  and  from  different  centuries.  They 
are  also  so  far  removed  from  each  other  that 
we  cannot  trace  any  influences  acting  between 
them,  so  that  each  may  stand  by  itself  as  a 
type.  I  ask  you  to  look  with  me  at  St.  Francis 
of  Assisi  ( 1 182-1226)  and  Heinrich  Suso  of 
Germany  (1300-1365)  and  Mother  Julian  of 
Norwich,  in  England  (1343-1413).  We  will 
tell  their  story  and  see  if  it  be  possible  to  fit 
them  into  the  scheme  we  have  already  laid 
down.  By  seeing  our  theories  translated  into 
life  we  may  understand  and  practise  them  the 
better. 

St.  Francis,  in  many  traits  of  his  character 
and  in  his  mode  of  life,  might  seem  far  re- 
moved from  the  typical  Mystic  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  Yet  for  this  very  reason  his  Mysticism 
is  brought  into  clearer  relief  and  is  seen,  with 
all  its  intensity,  to  be  a  very  human  thing. 
More  than  any  I  know  he  kept  himself  in 
closest  touch  with  everything  human.  His 
knowledge  of  men  was  unusual,  and  with  Na- 


St.  Francis — Suso— Mother  Julian  109 

ture  in  her  every  aspect  he  had  the  deepest 
sympathy.  He  ordered  his  followers  always 
to  have  a  plot  for  flowers  in  their  more  useful 
vegetable  gardens,  while  his  love  for  the  birds, 
especially  for  the  larks,  was  a  passion.^  His 
influence  over  his  time  and  after  it  was  greater 
than  we  are  even  now  beginning  to  realize. 
He  is  one  of  the  great  men  of  the  world,  a 
man  who  not  only  made  a  deep  impression  on 
the  life  of  his  time,  but  one  whose  influence 
persists  after  seven  centuries,  and  who  has 
even  now  a  personal  devotion  accorded  to  him 
which  I  dare  to  say  is  received  by  no  one  save 
by  his  Master. 

It  is  not  to  our  purpose  to  study  these  larger 
aspects  of  his  character  and  work.  They  can 
be  understood  only  after  thorough  knowledge 
of  the  conditions  which  he  faced.  He  simply 
stepped  into  the  midst  of  everything  that  was 
abhorrent  to  him  and  brought  with  him  his 
unflagging  courtesy,  his  joyous  temperament, 
his  keen  insight  and  common  sense,  his  love 
and  sympathy,  and  above  all,  his  desire  to  be 
like  Christ,  and  then,  like  Christ,  just  went 
about  doing  good.  I  speak  of  this  only  in  pass- 
ing, to  remind  you  of  what  is  so  often  forgot- 

^  Mirror  of  Perfection,  p.  170. 


no     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

ten,  that  it  is  not  incompatible  with  true  Mys- 
ticism to  be  extremely  practical  and  constantly 
busy,  and  sometimes  astonishingly  influential 
and  successful.  We  have  not  time  to  show  how 
true  this  is  of  Francis, — how  he  influenced  art 
and  literature,  how  be  brought  a  new  temper 
into  political  life,  how  he  stands  to  the  lepers 
of  Italy  as  a  John  Howard  to  the  prisoners  of 
England  or  a  Dorothea  Dix  to  the  insane  of 
America,  and  how,  above  all,  by  his  institution 
of  the  Order  of  Tertiaries,  he  undermined  and 
finally  did  away  with  the  burden  of  Feudalism 
in  his  own  land.  Our  aim  in  these  lectures  is 
different,  more  personal  and  interior.  I  turn 
to  the  man  himself. 

His  name  was  Francis  Bernadone,  born  in 
Assisi  in  1182,  son  of  a  rich  cloth  merchant, 
his  mother  probably  French,  destined  to  take 
over  his  father's  business,  leader  in  the  gay 
life  of  the  town,  ''the  best  dressed  man  in 
Assisi."  He  was  for  a  time  a  soldier  fighting 
against  Assisi's  enemy,  Perugia,  captured  and 
imprisoned  there  for  a  year,  the  cheeriest  man 
in  the  dungeon,  spending  the  time  in  recon- 
ciling enmities  and  singing  French  chansons, 
sent  home  to  be  taken  ill  with  a  fever,  where  he 
hovered   between   life   and   death    for   many 


St.  Francis — Suso — Mother  Julian  iii 

weeks, — and  then,  out  of  this  gay,  pleasure- 
loving,  merchant-soldier,  St.  Francis  begins  to 
emerge,  simply,  quaintly,  yet  with  all  the  joy- 
ousness  and  sweetness  of  the  former  trouba- 
dour, now  sublimated  and  spiritualized  into 
the  troubadour  of  God,  the  knight  errant  of 
the  Church. 

Some  people  know  Francis  only  as  the 
founder  of  the  great  order  of  Brothers  Minor, 
the  Franciscans,  perhaps  a  little  more  inter- 
esting than  the  rest  of  the  crowd  of  pallid  fig- 
ures of  whose  hallucinations  and  self-inflicted 
tortures  and  incredible  miracles  we  read  in 
Golden  Legends  and  Acta  Sanctorum.  Some 
people  think  of  him  only  as  a  half  crazy  me- 
dieval monk.  But  he  is  a  Mystic,  and  all  his 
life  is  a  consistent  expression  of  the  Mystic 
spirit.  The  steps  are  easily  traced.  He  had 
come  out  of  his  year's  imprisonment  and  long 
illness  with  that  sense  of  something  lacking  in 
his  life  which  comes  to  so  many  young  men 
and  must  come  to  every  Mystic.  It  is  the  first 
step  in  the  Mystic  Way.  And  here,  as  so  often 
we  know,  the  Church  failed  to  fill  his  need.  He 
was  not  satisfied  with  his  former  life  and  yet 
he  could  see  nothing  else  to  do,  and  so  he  went 
back  to  it  again.    Once  more  he  was  the  leader 


112    The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

in  processions  and  dances  and  banquets,  and 
having  the  chance  to  go  to  war  again  with  a 
knightly  train  to  take  part  in  some  feud  in 
Apulia,  he  gathered  an  equipment  of  princely 
proportions,  never  being  stinted  of  money,  and 
started  off.  But  he  got  no  further  than  Spo- 
leto,^  where  he  again  fell  ill  of  a  fever,  and 
came  back,  weakened  and  discouraged,  to  meet 

•"When  therefore  he  had  gone  to  Spoleto  to  set  forth  on 
his  journey  and  go  into  Apulia,  he  began  to  ponder  somewhat. 
Yet  none  the  less  anxious  about  his  journey,  when  he  had 
yielded  unto  sleep,  he  heard  while  half  asleep  one  asking  him 
whither  he  desired  to  proceed.  And  when  Francis  had  re- 
vealed his  whole  purpose,  he  added :  'Which  can  do  the  better 
for  thee,  the  lord  or  the  servant?'  And  when  he  answered 
'the  lord/  that  other  said  again  unto  him:  'Wherefore  then 
dost  thou  leave  the  lord  for  the  servant,  and  a  rich  lord 
for  a  poor?'  And  Francis  said:  -Lord,  what  wouldst  thou 
have  me  to  do?'  'Return,'  saith  He,  'unto  thine  own  country, 
and  it  shall  be  told  unto  thee  what  thou  shalt  do,  for  the 
vision  that  thou  hast  seen  behoveth  thee  to  understand  in 
other  wise.'  Then,  waking,  he  began  earnestly  to  ponder  this 
vision.  And  just  as  in  the  first  vision  he  had  been  as  it  were 
quite  carried  out  of  himself  for  his  great  joy,  coveting  world- 
ly good  fortune,  so  in  this  vision  he  withdrew  within  himself 
entirely,  wondering  at  its  might,  and  meditating  so  earnestly 
that  he  could  sleep  no  more  that  night.  And  so,  at  early 
morn,  he  returned  toward  Assisi  in  haste  and  with  gladness 
and  joy  exceeding,  awaiting  the  will  of  the  Lord,  Who  had 
shown  him  this  thing,  and  to  be  told  concerning  his  salva- 
tion from  himself.  Changed  in  his  mind  is  he  now,  and  re- 
fusing to  go  into  Apulia,  seeketh  to  mould  himself  unto  the 
Divine  Will,"     [Salter:     The  Legend  of  St.  Francis,  pp.  15- 

i6a 


St.  Francis — Suso^Mother  Julian  113 

the  jeers  of  the  young  men  whose  jealousy  he 
had  excited.  Then  for  months  he  wandered 
about,  frequenting  a  cave  near  Assisi,  attend- 
ing Masses  in  the  little  wayside  chapels.  The 
stream  of  his  intense  nature  was  being  dammed 
up,  and  no  one  knew  when  it  would  break 
forth.  In  studying  such  a  life,  lived  700  years 
ago,  we  must  judge  it,  as  far  as  we  can,  from 
the  standard  of  the  time.  And  here  we  must 
remember  that  the  Italy  of  his  day  was  even 
more  intense  than  it  is  now.  Men  then  did 
nothing  by  halves.  They  sinned  completely  and 
gorgeously.  When  they  turned  from  sin  they 
became  ascetics  of  the  severest  and  most  un- 
compromising sort.  And  Francis  was  a  man 
typical  of  his  time.  The  popular  idea  of  him 
as  weak  and  negative  is  totally  wrong.  He  is 
of  all  saints  the  youngest,  most  restless,  gentle 
indeed  but  virile,  and  when  he  breaks  loose 
now  and  hears  his  call,  nothing  can  stop  him 
and  he  will  stop  at  nothing.  It  is  vain  for  us 
to  call  him  enthusiastic  and  visionary  and 
laugh  at  his  extravagances.  For  him  and  his 
time  it  was  the  only  way  to  express  himself, 
and  as  the  end  crowns  the  work,  we  must  ac- 
knowledge that  his  way  succeeded. 

For  two  years  he  went  about  trying  to  find 


114    The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

what  his  Father's  business  was.  "His  friends 
were  making  continual  efforts  to  induce  him 
to  take  up  his  old  habits  again.  One  day  he 
invited  them  all  to  a  sumptuous  banquet.  They 
thought  they  had  conquered  and  as  in  old 
times,  they  proclaimed  him  King  of  the  Revels. 
The  feast  was  prolonged  far  into  the  night, 
and  at  its  close  the  guests  rushed  out  into  the 
streets,  which  they  filled  with  song  and  up- 
roar. Suddenly  they  perceived  that  Francis 
was  no  longer  with  them.  After  long  search- 
ing they  found  him  far  behind,  still  holding 
in  his  hand  his  sceptre  of  King  of  Misrule, 
but  plunged  in  a  revery  so  profound  that  he 
seemed  to  be  rooted  to  the  ground  and  un- 
conscious of  all  that  was  going  on.  'What  is 
the  matter  with  you?'  they  cried,  bustling 
about  him  as  if  to  awaken  him.  'Don't  you  see 
he  is  thinking  of  taking  a  wife?'  said  one. 
'Yes,'  answered  Francis,  arousing  himself  and 
looking  at  them  with  a  smile  which  they  did 
not  recognize,  'I  am  thinking  of  taking  a  wife 
more  beautiful,  more  rich,  more  pure  than  you 
could  ever  imagine.'  "  ^  He  was  carrying  over 
his  troubadour  spirit  into  his  new  life,  and  his 
Lady  Paramour  was  to  be  the  Lady  Poverty. 

•  Sabatier :  The  Life  of  St.  Francis,  p.  22. 


St.  Francis — Suso— Mother  Julian  115 

But  as  yet  he  had  not  known  how  to  declare 
his  love  for  her.  He  went  to  Rome  and  sat 
among  the  beggars  on  the  steps  of  St.  Peter's. 
He  gave  away  much  money  and  more  sym- 
pathy. He  thought  he  could  remain  rich  and 
yet  understand  the  poor.  He  really  cared  for 
them,  but  for  one  class  he  had  an  instinctive 
and  deep-rooted  repugnance.  Others  agreed 
with  him,  for  the  lepers  were  banished  from  all 
social  intercourse.  Theirs  was  a  living  death. 
The  Church  even  had  a  solemn  and  terrible 
service  for  their  seclusion  from  mankind.  To 
this  sensitive  and  fastidious  young  man  even 
the  sight  of  a  leper  was  loathsome.  One  day, 
riding  his  richly-caparisoned  horse  around  As- 
sist he  came  suddenly  upon  a  leper  and  he 
wheeled  his  horse  and  spurred  him  away  in 
horror.  Then  the  dam  broke.  Here  was  the 
renunciation,  the  hardest  act  of  self-sacrifice. 
He  turned  his  horse  and  went  back  and  gave 
the  leper  all  he  had  of  money,  and  then  knelt 
and  kissed  his  hand,  and  rode  away  a  free  man. 
Years  afterward,  on  the  eve  of  his  death,  he. 
wrote  his  will  and  as  he  cast  a  backward  glance 
over  the  way  by  which  he  had  been  led,  he  sees 
that  this  incident  was  the  real  turning  point 
of  his  life.     He  says,  as  he  begins  his  last 


ii6    The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

Testament:  "The  Lord  gave  to  me.  Brother 
Francis,  thus  to  begin  to  do  penance ;  for  when 
I  was  in  sin  it  seemed  to  me  very  bitter  to  see 
lepers  and  the  Lord  himself  led  me  amongst 
them,  and  I  showed  mercy  to  them,  and  when 
I  left  them,  that  which  had  seemed  to  me  bit- 
ter was  changed  for  me  into  sweetness  of  body 
and  soul." 

This  was  his  conversion,  the  third  step  in 
the  Way,  but  still  what  to  do  with  himself  was 
not  clear.  He  had  not  heard  the  personal  call. 
He  dreamed  that  he  was  to  repair  the  Church, 
He  did  not  realize  the  largeness  of  the  work, 
so  he  began  to  repair,  with  his  own  hands,  the 
little  chapel  of  San  Damiano  on  the  outskirts 
of  Assisi.  To  its  priest  he  gave  all  his  per- 
sonal property.  This  done  he  built  a  hut  by 
the  side  of  the  still  smaller  chapel  of  the  Por- 
tiuncula,  a  little  farther  from  the  town,  and 
began  to  repair  that.  Attending  Mass  in  it  one 
morning  he  heard  the  words  in  the  Gospel  for 
the  day:  "Take  neither  gold  nor  silver  nor 
brass  in  your  purses,  nor  scrip  for  your  jour- 
ney, nor  shoes  nor  staves."  Then  suddenly  it 
flashed  upon  him  that  he  had  found  his  orders, 
the  clear  directions  from  Christ  himself  as  to 
what  he  should  do.     He  threw  away  every- 


St.  Francis — Suso— Mother  Julian  117 

thing  and  put  on  the  commonest  dress  of  the 
poorest  Apennine  peasant.  It  was  the  taking 
of  the  Franciscan  habit,  the  gray  tunic  and 
the  rough  cord.  It  was  the  real  founding  of 
the  Order.  And  its  rule  was  that  simple  verse. 
Soon  Bernard  of  Quintavalle,  a  rich  and 
prominent  man  of  Assisi,  and  Pietro,  a  peasant, 
decided  to  attach  themselves  to  him  and  to 
follow  his  example.  He  took  them  to  a  church 
and  opened  the  Gospel  and  read  the  verse  to 
them  and  said :  ''Brethren,  this  is  our  life  and 
our  Rule  and  that  of  all  who  may  join  us.  Go, 
then,  and  do  as  you  have  heard."  It  was  all 
as  simple  as  that.  Other  men  came  to  join 
these  three,  and  then  more.  Then  a  real  but 
still  simple  Rule  was  set  forth,  and  they  jour- 
neyed to  Rome  to  have  it  approved  by  the  Pope. 
So  the  order  of  Brothers  Minor  grew,  not  out 
of  a  paper  constitution  but  as  the  direct  out- 
come and  influence  of  a  man's  life.  It  was  all 
summed  up  in  doing  what  St.  Francis  did,  and 
he,  we  know,  desired  only  to  do  what  Christ 
did.  In  his  life  we  modern  Christians  find 
some  very  shocking  and  to  us  unnecessary 
imitations,  but  we  see  also  a  very  sane  and 
sensible  man  doing  them,  and  they  certainly 


ii8     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

Open  up  some  very  heart-searching  questions.* 
Asceticism  is  belief  in  pain  and  want  for 
their  own  sakes,  as  agreeable  in  themselves  to 
God  and  as  laying  up  grace  in  Heaven.  No- 
where do  we  find  St.  Francis  laying  any 
stress  upon  this  thought.  These  things, — pov- 
erty, cold,  nakedness,  hunger,  contumely — are 
means  by  which  the  man  who  would  be  free 
dominates  the  tyrant  within.® 

Both  his  poverty  and  his  asceticism  are  so 
spontaneous  and  joyous  that  they  are  forever 
taken  out  of  the  gloomy  category  of  Mo- 
nasticism.  He  could  not  himself  be  free  and 
yet  be  rich.  Some  men  can,  but  he  had  tried 
it  and  had  failed.  He  was  no  child  of  the 
proletariat,  railing  at  those  who  were  better 
off.  He  did  not  set  himself  to  be  the  judge  of 
the  rich,  but  for  him  there  was  a  royal  road 
to  freedom  of  spirit  and  that  was  to  be  poor, 
utterly  and  entirely  poor.  Being  an  adven- 
turer, a  knight  errant,  he  must  carry  no  such 
burden.  He  must  have  his  hands,  his  heart, 
and  above  all,  his  soul,  free.  And  here  his 
aim  was  joy  as  much  as  that  of  any  epicurean. 
Cheerfulness  was  blessed  and  sadness  damned 

*  The  Little  Flowers,  Chap.  VIII. 

'  Mirror  of  Perfection,  Chap.  XXVII  and  Chap.  XCVI. 


St.  Francis — Suso — Mother  Julian  iig 

by  him.  To  be  sure,  in  his  youthful  zeal  he 
rather  overdid  the  mauling  of  his  body,  and 
he  confessed  this  himself.  Eager  and  keen,  he 
spurred  and  flogged  this  "Brother  Ass,"  as  he 
called  his  body,  and  fed  it  sparely,  ever  unsatis- 
fied until  he  had  made  it  willing  and  swift  and 
hardy.  But  this  step  we  call  Purgation  was 
for  him  only  an  exhilarating  knightly  exer- 
cise. 

All  this  joyousness  of  nature  and  natural- 
ness and  absolute  freedom  from  anything  that 
was  morbid  make  Francis'  life  singularly  free 
from  that  stage  we  have  called  Negation,  that 
Dark  Night  of  the  Soul  which  shrouds  so 
many  sometimes  for  many  years.  So  we  may 
thankfully  omit  that  from  our  study  of  this 
man  and  be  glad  that  he  shows  us  how  we  may 
escape.  Thus  we  come  to  the  end  when  the 
longing  to  be  like  Christ  with  which  he  started 
has  its  symbolical  fulfillment  in  the  reception 
of  the  Stigmata  in  the  solitude  of  the  Mount 
of  Alvernia.  He  saw  his  vision  and  heard 
these  words:  "And  as  he  thus  marveled  it 
was  revealed  by  him  that  appeared  to  him  that 
by  divine  Providence  this  vision  had  been 
shown  in  such  form  to  the  end  that  he  might 
understand  that  not  by  the  martyrdom  of  the 


I20    The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

body  but  by  the  enkindling  of  his  mind  must 
he  needs  be  wholly  transformed  into  the  ex- 
press image  of  Christ  crucified  in  that  glorious 
apparition."  ®  Then  he  came  down  from  the 
Mount  trying  to  conceal  from  his  nearest 
friends  the  "marks  of  the  Lord  Jesus."  '^ 

The  union  was  very  nearly  complete,  his  goal 
almost  reached.  The  wracked  body  could  bear 
no  more  and  he  failed  rapidly.  His  friends 
tell  the  story  with  simple  pathos: 

"And  having  said  this  he  was  carried  to  St. 
Mary  of  the  Angels,  where,  having  completed 
forty  years  of  his  age  and  twenty  years  of  per- 
fect penitence,  he,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1227, 
on  the  4th  of  the  Nones  of  October,  passed 
away  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  whom  he  loved 
with  his  whole  heart,  with  his  whole  mind, 
his  whole  soul,  his  whole  strength,  his  most  ar- 
dent desire  and  fullest  affection,  following  him 
most  perfectly,  running  after  him  most  sweet- 
ly, and  at  the  last  reaching  him  most  gloriously, 
who,  with  the  Father  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  lives 
and  reigns  forever  and  ever.    Amen."  ^ 

Turn  we  now  to  another  sample  of  the  same 

'  The  Little  Flowers,  p.  192. 

'St.   Bonaventura:      The  Life   of  St.   Francis,    pp.    139-4O. 
The  Little  Flowers,  p.  185. 
»  The  Mirror  of  Perfection,  Chap.  CXXIV. 


St.  Francis — Suso — Mother  Julian  121 

Spirit,  another  troubadour,  but  of  the  heavier 
Teutonic  sort,  living  more  than  a  century  later 
than  St.  Francis. 

Heinrich  Suso  was  born  at  Ueberlingen, 
near  Constance,  on  St.  Benedict's  Day,  A.  D. 
1300.  He  was  well  born  on  both  sides  of  his 
house,  the  families  being  both  noble  and  an- 
cient. From  his  devotion  to  his  mother  he 
called  himself  by  her  name,  Seuss,  Latinized 
into  Suso,  his  father's  name  being  von  Berg. 
He  became  a  Dominican  monk,  entering  the 
monastery  at  Constance  when  he  was  13  years 
old.  Then  he  was  transferred  to  Cologne, 
where  he  studied  diligently  at  the  University. 
"While  there  he  made  such  great  progress  in 
learning  that  he  was  about  to  be  promoted  to 
the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Theology,  but  he  was 
forbidden  to  accept  this  honor  by  a  voice  from 
God  within  him,  saying: — 'Thou  knowest  well 
enough  already  how  to  give  voice  to  God  and 
to  draw  other  men  to  him  by  thy  preaching.' 
From  that  time  forth  he  began  to  preach  with 
great  zeal  and  fervor  and  to  devote  himself 
to  the  conversion  of  sinners  and  the  guidance 
of  souls  along  the  highest  paths  of  mystical 
perfection.  At  length,  after  many  years  of 
unceasing  labors  and  sufferings  he  died  at 


122     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

Ulm,  on  the  Feast  of  the  Conversion  of  St. 
Paul,  in  1365,  and  was  buried  in  the  cloister  of 
the  Dominican  convent  in  that  city."  ^ 

He  has  left  us  two  books  from  which  we 
must  draw  all  our  knowledge  of  his  life  save  the 
bare  facts  just  recorded.  He  wrote  his  own 
life,  or  rather  his  experiences  related  to  his 
friend  Elizabeth  Stagelin  were  set  down  by  her 
and  then  surreptitiously  circulated.  "Later  on, 
when  he  found  out  this  ghostly  theft,  he  re- 
proved her  for  it  and  forcing  her  to  give  up 
to  him  all  the  writing,  he  burnt  up  all  of  it  that 
was  there."  When,  however,  the  rest  of  it 
was  given  to  him  and  he  was  going  to  treat 
it  in  like  manner,  he  was  stopped  by  a  heavenly 
message  from  God  forbidding  it.  Thus  what 
follows  remained  unhurt,  for  the  most  part, 
just  as  she  had  written  it  with  her  own  hand. 
Many  good  instructions  were  also  added  to  it 
by  him  after  her  death  in  her  name.^*^ 

Of  this  book  Inge,  in  his  Bampton  Lectures 
(p.  173)  says:  "In  his  old  age,  shortly  before 
his  death  in  1365,  he  published  the  history  of 
his  life,  which  is  one  of  the  most  interesting 

•  The  Life  of  the  Blessed  Henry  Suso.  Translator's  Preface, 
p.  xxxi. 
*•  Suso :    Life,  p.  5- 


St.  Francis — Suso — Mother  Julian  123 

and  charming-  of  all  autobiographies.  Suso's 
literary  gift  is  remarkable.  Unlike  most 
ecstatic  Mystics  who  declare  on  each  occa- 
sion that  "tongue  cannot  utter"  their  experi- 
ences, Suso's  store  of  glowing  and  vivid  lan- 
guage never  fails.  The  hunger  and  thirst  of 
the  soul  for  God  and  the  answering  love  of 
Christ  manifested  in  the  inner  man  have  never 
found  a  more  pure  and  beautiful  expression." 
A  writer  in  the  Edinburgh  Reviezv  (for  Oc- 
tober, 1896),  says:  *'In  Suso's  narrative  the 
spirit  of  this  century  is  pictured  with  a  vivid- 
ness and  reality  Froissart  himself,  his  contem- 
porary, does  not  surpass." 

He  wrote  himself  "The  Little  Book  of  Eter- 
nal Wisdom."  Its  origin  w^as  a  series  of  a 
hundred  short  meditations  on  the  Passion 
which  he  had  vowed  to  make.  These  form  a 
short  appendix  to  the  book  and  are  not  very 
valuable,  but  in  writing  them  he  says:  "He 
gained  many  a  bright  inspiration  of  divine 
truth  whereof  these  meditations  were  a  cause, 
and  between  him  and  the  Eternal  Wisdom  there 
sprang  up  a  tender  intercourse."  " 

The  result  he  gives  us  is  in  dramatic  form. 
He  is  the  Servitor  and  Eternal  Wisdom  talks 

"  The  Little  Book  of  Eternal  IVisdom,  p.  21. 


124     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

with  him  and  answers  his  questions.  The  con- 
versation is  sweet.  The  servant  treats  his 
Master  with  reverence,  yet  with  a  quaint  and 
half  humorous  boldness.  The  answers  of  the 
Eternal  Wisdom  show  an  intimate  acquaint- 
ance with  the  writings  of  Dionysius  and 
Thomas  Aquinas  and  Suso's  master,  Eckhart. 
But  they  are  softened  and  sweetened  and 
made  human  by  passing  through  his  own  heart 
and  being  expressed  in  his  beautiful  language. 
But  we  turn  away  from  these.  We  must 
trace,  in  our  study  of  both  the  Eternal  Wisdom 
and  the  Life  together  the  various  steps  in  his 
Mystic  experience  which  for  us  are  more  im- 
portant than  the  theological  discussions. 

"The  first  beginning  of  the  Servitor's  per- 
fect conversion  to  God  took  place  when  he 
was  in  his  eighteenth  year.  And  though  he 
had  worn  the  religious  habit  for  the  five  pre- 
vious years,  his  soul  was  still  dissipated  within 
him;  and  it  seemed  to  him  that  if  God  only 
preserved  him  from  weightier  sins,  which 
might  tarnish  his  good  name,  there  was  no 
need  to  be  over-careful  about  ordinary  faults. 
Nevertheless,  he  was  so  kept  by  God  the  while, 
that  he  had  always  an  unsatisfied  feeling  with- 
in him,  whenever  he  turned  himself  to  the  ob- 


St.  Francis — Suso — Mother  Julian  125 

jects  of  his  desires,  and  it  seemed  to  him  that 
it  must  be  something  quite  different  which 
could  bring  peace  to  his  wild  heart,  and  he  was 
ill  at  ease  amid  his  restless  ways.  He  felt  at 
all  times  a  gnawing  reproach  within,  and  yet 
he  could  not  help  himself,  until  the  kind  God 
set  him  free  from  it  by  turning  him.  His 
companions  marvelled  at  the  speedy  change, 
wondering  how  it  had  come  over  him;  and 
one  said  this,  and  another  that,  but  as  to  how 
it  was,  no  one  either  guessed  or  came  near  to 
guessing  it ;  for  it  was  a  secret  illumination  and 
drawing  sent  by  God,  and  it  wrought  in  him 
with  speed  a  turning  away  from  creatures."  *^ 

"  'Her  have  I  loved,  and  have  sought  her 
out  from  my  youth,  and  have  desired  to  take 
her  for  my  spouse,  and  I  became  a  lover  of  her 
beauty.'  These  words  stand  written  in  the 
Book  of  Wisdom,  and  are  spoken  by  the  beau- 
tiful and  all-loving  Wisdom. 

"A  Servant  was  filled  with  disgust  and  de- 
jection of  heart  on  his  first  setting  forth  on 
the  uneven  ways.  Then  did  the  Eternal  Wis- 
dom meet  him  in  a  spiritual  and  ineffable 
form,  and  lead  him  through  bitter  and  sweet 
until  she  brought  him  to  the  right  path  of  di- 

"  Life  of  the  Blessed  Henry  Suso,  p.  6. 


126    The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

vine  truth.  And,  after  well  reflecting  on  his 
wonderful  progress,  he  thus  spoke  to  God: 
Sweet  and  tender  Lord!  from  the  days  of  my 
childhood  my  mind  has  sought  for  something 
with  burning  thirst,  but  w^hat  it  is  I  have  not 
as  yet  fully  understood.  Lord,  I  have  pursued 
it  ardently  many  a  year,  but  I  never  could 
grasp  it,  for  I  know  not  what  it  is,  and  yet  it 
is  something  that  attracts  my  heart  and  soul, 
without  which  I  can  never  attain  true  rest. 

"Alas,  my  God,  why  didst  Thou  not  show 
Thyself  to  me  long  ago,  why  hast  Thou  de- 
layed so  long?  How  many  a  weary  way  have 
I  not  wandered !" 

''Eternal  Wisdom — Had  I  done  so  thou 
wouldst  not  have  known  My  goodness  so  sen- 
sibly as  now  thou  knowest  it."  ^^ 

"The  Servant — Lord!  art  Thou  this  thing; 
or  am  I  it,  or  what  is  it? 

Bternal  Wisdom — Thou  art  and  hast  of  thy- 
self nothing  but  imperfection;  I  am  it,  and 
this  is  the  game  of  love. 

The  Servant — But  Lord,  what  is  the  game 
of  love? 

Bternal  Wisdom — All  the  time  that  love  is 
with  love,  love  does  not  know  how  dear  love 

"Suso:    Eternal  Wisdom,  pp.  25-27, 


St.  Francis — Suso — Mother  Julian  127 

is;  but  when  love  separates  from  love,  then 
only  does  love  feel  how  dear  love  was. 

The  Servant — Lord !  this  is  a  dreary  game. 
Alas,  Lord!  is  inconstancy  never  cast  aside 
in  any  one  while  time  lasts? 

Eternal  Wisdom — In  very  few  persons,  for 
constancy  belongs  to  eternity. 

The  Servant — Lord,  who  are  these  persons? 

Eternal  IVidsom— The  very  purest  of  all, 
and  in  eternity  the  most  like  to  God. 

The  Servant — Lord,  which  are  they  ? 

Eternal  IVisdom — They  are  the  persons 
who  have  denied  themselves  in  the  most  per- 
fect manner."  ^* 

Here  we  see  the  longings  of  Suso's  heart, 
the  beginning  of  his  Alystic  Way.  **He  had 
always  an  unsatisfied  feeling  within  him." 
"He  felt  at  all  times  a  gnawing  reproach  with- 
in and  yet  he  could  not  help  himself  until  the 
kind  God  set  him  free  by  turning  him."  It 
is  the  usual  Christian  experience.  And  then 
the  turning,  the  conversion,  is  the  awakening. 
Quite  early  in  his  course  visions  were  given 
him.  In  Chapter  III  of  his  Life  he  tells  of 
probably  the  first  one  of  the  many.     I  must 

"Suso:    Eternal  IVtsdom,  pp.  62-63. 


128    The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

not  describe  it,  lest  I  spoil  the  beauty  of  his 
own  description: 

"His  heart  was  athirst  and  yet  satisfied; 
his  mind  was  joyous  and  blooming.  Wishes 
were  stilled  in  him  and  desires  had  departed. 
.  .  .  He  said  afterwards:  If  this  be  not 
Heaven,  I  know  not  what  Heaven  is  .  .  . 
adding:  Ah,  Thou  who  art  my  heart's  good! 
Never  can  this  hour  pass  from  my  heart.  He 
went  on  his  way  in  body  and  no  one  saw  or 
took  note  of  anything  in  him  outwardly:  but 
his  soul  and  mind  were  full  even  of  heavenly 
marvels.  The  heavenly  glances  came  again 
and  again  in  his  innermost  interior,  and  it 
seemed  to  him  as  if  he  were  floating  in  the 
air.  The  powers  of  his  soul  were  filled  full 
of  the  sweet  taste  of  Heaven;  just  as  when  a 
choice  electuary  has  been  poured  out  of  a  box. 
The  box  still  keeps  the  good  flavor  of  it.  This 
heavenly  taste  remained  with  him  for  a  long 
time  afterwards  and  gave  him  a  yearning  and 
longing  after  God."  ^^ 

But  along  with  these  glimpses  of  God's  pres- 
ence within  him  comes  the  sight  of  himself  and 
his  sinfulness  and  unworthiness,  ''Was  there 
ever  a  suitor  subjected  to  as  hard  terms  as 

"  Life  of  the  Blessed  Henry  Suso,  p.  lo. 


St.  Francis — Suso — Mother  Julian  129 

these?  A  thought  from  God  answered:  *By 
ancient  right  love  and  suffering  go  together. 
There  is  no  wooer  but  he  is  a  sufferer ;  no  lover 
but  he  is  a  martyr.  Therefore  it  is  not  unjust 
that  he  who  aims  so  high  in  love  should  meet 
with  some  things  repugnant  to  him.  Remem- 
ber all  the  mishaps  and  vexations  which 
earthly  lovers  suffer,  whether  with  their  will 
or  against  it.'  He  was  greatly  strengthened 
to  persevere  by  good  inspirations  of  this 
sort."  ^« 

"The  Servant — Woe  is  me,  Lord,  but  this 
is  a  dreary  pastime!  My  whole  nature  rebels 
against  these  words.  Lord,  how  shall  I  ever 
endure  it  all?  Gentle  Lord,  one  thing  I  must 
say:  couldst  Thou  not  have  found  out  some 
other  way,  in  Thy  eternal  wisdom,  to  save  me 
and  show  Thy  love  for  me,  some  way  which 
would  have  exempted  Thee  from  Thy  great 
sufferings,  and  me  from  their  bitter  participa- 
tion? How  very  wonderful  do  Thy  judgments 
appear!"  ^'^ 

Out  of  this  feeling  grew  all  the  terrible  aus- 
terities of  which  Suso  is  almost  the  crowning 
example  among  Mystics.     A  mere  recital  of 

"Ibid.,  p.  13. 

"Eternal  IVisdom,  p.  31. 


130    The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

his  morbidities  makes  our  tender  modern  flesh 
creep  and  shrink  from  even  the  thought.  We 
must  not  judge  St.  Francis  and  Suso  and  the 
others  by  our  own  standards.  They  used  the 
methods  of  their  day.  Probably  what  their 
lords  and  ladies  called  luxury  would  be  con- 
sidered hardships  by  us.  At  any  rate,  the  at- 
tempt to  fit  a  soul  to  meet  and  see  God  was 
a  worthy  one.  They  may  have  mistaken  the 
means,  and  yet  austerity  of  some  sort  cannot 
be  avoided  even  to-day.  The  saints  of  to-day 
are  not  the  easy  livers,  the  ones  who  pamper 
themselves  and  are  ministered  unto.  And  so 
as  we  feel  ourselves  shocked  reading  of  what 
St.  Francis  and  Suso  did  to  their  poor  bodies, 
we  should  not  only  pity  their  mistake  but  also 
feel  for  them  a  great  reverence  as  for  men 
who,  though  mistaken,  at  least  dared  to  the  ut- 
most to  gain  an  end  we  only  feebly  wish  for. 
Instead  of  wearing  a  pectoral  cross  of  gold 
over  a  swelling  clerical  waistcoat,  Suso  cut 
with  a  stylus  into  his  bosom's  flesh  over  his 
heart,  in  letters  an  inch  high,  the  name  *7^su." 
In  Chapters  XVII-XX  may  be  found  his  own 
account,  which  closes  thus: 

"At  length,  after  the  Servitor  had  led,  from 
his  eighteenth  to  his  fortieth  year,  a  life  of 


St.  Francis — Suso — Mother  Julian  131 

exercises,  according  to  the  outer  man — such 
as  have  been  in  part  described  above — and 
when  his  whole  frame  was  now  so  worn  and 
wasted  that  nothing  remained  for  him  except 
to  die  or  leave  off  these  exercises,  he  left  them 
oft";  and  God  showed  him  that  all  this  austerity 
and  all  these  practices  were  nothing  more  than 
a  good  beginning,  and  a  breaking  through  his 
uncrushed  natural  man;  and  he  saw  that  he 
must  press  on  still  further  in  quite  another 
way,  if  he  wished  to  reach  perfection."  ^® 

These  sensible  words  also  follow,  showing 
the  growing  sense  of  wherein  self-discipline 
lies: 

''The  same  thing  happens  with  these  persons 
when,  with  their  undisciplined  reason,  they 
try  to  behold  God  as  all  in  all,  and  endeavor, 
according  to  their  imperfect  intelligence,  to 
let  go  this  and  that,  they  know  not  how.  It 
is  true  indeed,  that  everything  must  be  let  go 
by  him  who  would  attain  perfection ;  but  they 
do  not  understand  how  this  letting-go  of  things 
is  to  be  managed,  and  they  try  to  let  go  this 
and  that  without  discretion,  and  to  rid  them- 

^"Life  of  the  Blessed  Henry  Suso,  p.  64. 
Read  the  beautiful  Hymn  of  Suffering  in  The  Little  Book 
of  Eternal  Wisdom,  p.  80. 


132     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

selves  of  all  thing's  without  attending  to  the 
necessary  distinctions.  This  fault  arises  either 
from  unlearned  simplicity  or  unmortified 
craftiness."  ^^ 

Then  he  enters  the  ''other  way,"  the  higher, 
harder  school  which  is  thus  described  by  the 
Angelic  Guide  who  conducted  him  thither: 

"The  youth  answered:  'The  highest  school 
and  the  craft  which  is  taught  there  consist  sim- 
ply in  an  entire  and  perfect  detachment  from 
self;  that  is  to  say,  how  a  man  may  attain  to 
such  an  abiding  spirit  of  self-renunciation, 
that,  no  matter  how  God  treats  him,  either 
directly  by  Himself,  or  indirectly  through  crea- 
tures, or  how  he  feels,  whether  joyful  or  sad, 
the  one  object  of  his  strivings  shall  ever  be  to 
continue  always  the  same  by  a  perpetual  giving 
up  of  self,  as  far  as  human  frailty  will  allow, 
and  to  make  God's  honor  and  glory  his  sole 
aim,  just  in  the  way  that  the  dear  Christ  acted 
towards  his  heavenly  Father/  "  ^^ 

There  are  few  more  distressing  or  dramatic 
stories  than  the  Servitor  proceeds  to  tell,  still 
humbly  using  the  third  person,  describing  the 
new  trials  which  befell  him  when  he  outgrew 

^^  Life  of  the  Blessed  Henry  Stiso,  pp.  206-207. 
""Ibid.,  p.  66. 


St.  Francis — Suso — Mother  Julian  133 

his  lonely  self-macerations.  The  cutting  of  the 
flesh  is  mere  childish  suffering  compared  to 
the  false  accusations  of  thievery  and  deception 
and  adultery,  the  loss  of  reputation,  of  the  re- 
gard of  friends,  the  ruin  of  his  Christian  influ- 
ence as  a  preacher  and  a  teacher.  The  beauty 
and  pathos  of  the  story  told  by  him  in  Chapter 
XL  is  without  parallel.  Surely  in  the  state 
called  Purgation  Suso  had  his  perfect  school- 
ing, nor  was  he  spared  the  state  called  The 
Dark  Night  of  the  Soul.  Even  with  such  bright 
visions  as  this  one  to  cheer  him,  he  still  fell, 
he  tells  us,  into  the  deepest  gloom.  In  Chap- 
ter VI  of  his  Life,  he  says: 

"It  came  to  pass  once,  after  the  time  of  his 
sufferings  was  over,  that  early  one  morning 
he  was  surrounded  in  a  vision  by  the  heavenly 
spirits.  Whereupon  he  sought  one  of  the  bright 
princes  of  heaven  to  show  him  the  manner  of 
God's  secret  dwelling  in  his  soul.  The  Angel 
answered  thus:  'Cast,  then,  a  joyous  glance 
into  thyself,  and  see  how  God  plays  his  play 
of  love  with  thy  loving  soul.'  He  looked  imme- 
diately, and  saw  that  his  body  over  his  heart 
was  clear  as  crystal,  and  that  in  the  centre  of 
his  heart  was  sitting  tranquilly,  in  lovely  form, 
the  Eternal  Wisdom;  beside  whom  there  sat, 


134    The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

full  of  heavenly  longing,  the  Servitor's  soul, 
which  leaning  lovingly  towards  God's  side,  and 
encircled  by  God's  arms,  and  pressed  close  to 
His  Divine  heart,  lay  thus  entranced  and 
drowned  in  love  in  the  arms  of  the  beloved 
God."  '' 

And  then  in  Chapter  XXIII  we  read  of  his 
three  interior  sufferings  common  to  many 
Christians:  "One  of  these  was  impious  imag- 
inations against  the  faith  .  .  .  the  more  he 
fought  against  them  the  more  perplexed  he  be- 
came. God  suffered  him  to  remain  under  these 
temptations  about  nine  years,  during  which  he 
ceased  not,  with  wailing  heart  and  w^eeping 
eyes,  to  cry  to  God  and  all  the  saints  for  help. 
At  last,  when  God  deemed  that  the  time  was 
come,  he  set  him  entirely  free  from  them  and 
bestowed  upon  him  great  steadfastness  and 
clearness  of  faith."  "The  second  interior  suf- 
fering was  an  inordinate  sadness.  He  had  such 
a  continuous  heaviness  of  spirit  that  it  was  as  if 
a  mountain  lay  upon  his  heart.  A  partial  cause 
of  this  was  that  his  turning  away  from  crea- 
tures to  God  had  been  carried  out  with  such 
excessive  speed  and  severity  that  his  bodily 
frame  had  suffered  greatly  from  it.    This  trial 

Life  of  the  Blessed  Henry  Suso,  pp.  21-22. 


St.  Francis — Suso— Mother  Julian  135 

lasted  for  eight  years."  The  third  suffering 
was  the  thought  that  he  was  damned  eter- 
nally and  that  naught  could  avail  to  put  him 
among  the  saved : 

"After  this  terrible  suffering  had  lasted 
about  ten  years,  all  which  time  he  never  looked 
upon  himself  in  any  other  light  than  as  one 
damned,  he  went  to  the  holy  Master  Eckhart, 
and  made  known  to  him  his  suffering.  The 
holy  man  delivered  him  from  it,  and  thus  set 
him  free  from  the  hell  in  which  he  had  so 
long  dwelt."  "- 

After  this  he  comes  out  on  the  broad  high 
plane  of  serene  communion  which  is  called  by 
some  the  Unitive  State.  With  him,  unlike  so 
many,  it  did  not  mean  any  excess  of  visions, 
any  ecstasy.  It  seems  to  have  been  rather  a 
lessening  of  the  miraculous  occurrences  of  his 
earlier  years.  He  was  turned  from  the  abuse 
of  his  body,  from  his  lonely  cell,  and  from  si- 
lence, and  made  to  lead  a  useful  normal  life 
in  the  world.  "After  he  had  spent  many  years 
in  attending  to  his  interior  life,  God  urged  him, 
by  manifold  revelations,  to  apply  himself  also 
to  the  salvation  of  his  neighbor."  He  is  Con- 
fessor and  guide  to  many.     He  takes  an  in- 

"  Ibid.,  p.  79- 


136     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

terest  in  the  career  of  those  he  sees  falling 
into  sin  and  becomes  the  savior  of  many.  The 
later  chapters,  both  of  his  Little  Book  and  of 
his  Life,  become  the  statement  of  deep  truths 
about  the  Nature  of  God,  the  right  and  wrong 
use  of  Reason,  answering  the  questions  put  to 
him  by  his  spiritual  daughter,  Elizabeth  Stage- 
lin.  The  theology  is,  as  I  have  said,  of  his  time, 
but  there  is  a  charm  about  the  statement  show- 
ing the  sweet  spirit  of  the  man  and  a  beauty- 
of  language  which  is  beyond  that  of  Eckhart 
and  Tauler. 

Let  us  leave  the  man  with  these  words  of 
his  ringing  in  our  ears: 

"He  who  wishes  to  dwell  in  his  inmost  in- 
terior must  rid  himself  of  all  multiplicity.  He 
must  habitually  reject  all  that  is  not  the  one 
thing."  "If  a  man  cannot  comprehend  the 
matter  let  him  be  passive  and  the  matter  will 
comprehend  him."  "^ 

*'How  is  it  that  thou  so  readily  forgettest 
thyself  when  thou  art  so  perfectly  encompassed 
with  the  external  Good?  What  is  it  thy  soul 
seeks  in  exterior  things  who  carries  within 
herself  so  secretly  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven?"  ^* 

**  Life  of  the  Blessed  Henry  Suso,  p.  213. 
**  Eternal  Wisdom,  p.  63. 


St.  Francis — Suso— Mother  Julian  137 

"Spiritual  hunger  and  actual  devotion  must 
impel  thee  to  me  more  than  custom.  The  soul 
that  wishes  to  feel  me  interiorly  in  the  recesses 
of  a  secluded  life  and  sweetly  to  enjoy  me, 
must  first  of  all  be  cleansed  from  sin,  must  be 
adorned  with  virtue,  encircled  with  self-de- 
nial, decked  out  with  the  red  roses  of  ardent 
love,  strewn  over  with  the  fair  violets  of  hum- 
ble submission  and  with  the  white  lilies  of 
perfect  purity."  ^^ 

Coming  to  my  third  example  of  the  Mystic 
Life  I  find  myself  free  of  any  biographical 
notice.     To  quote  her  earliest  editor,  Hugh 

"Eternal  Wisdom,  p.  132. 

"Eternal  Wisdom. — The  truest,  most  useful,  and  most  prac- 
tical doctrine  in  all  the  Scriptures  that,  in  a  few  words,  will 
more  than  amply  convince  thee  of  all  the  truth  requisite  for 
the  attainment  of  the  summit  of  perfection  in  a  godly  life,  is 
tliis  doctrine :  Keep  thyself  secluded  from  all  mankind,  keep 
thyself  free  from  the  influence  of  all  external  things,  disen- 
thrall thyself  from  all  that  depends  on  chance  or  accident, 
and  direct  thy  mind  at  all  times  on  high  in  secret  and  divine 
contemplation,  wherein  with  a  steady  gaze  from  which  thou 
never  swervest,  thou  hast  Me  before  thy  eyes.  And  as  to 
other  exercises,  such  as  poverty,  fasting,  watching,  and  every 
other  castigation,  bend  them  all  to  this  as  their  end,  and  use 
just  so  much  and  so  many  of  them  as  may  advance  thee  to  it. 
Behold,  thus  wilt  thou  attain  to  the  loftiest  pitch  of  perfec- 
tion, that  not  one  person  in  a  thousand  comprehends,  be- 
cause, with  their  end  in  view,  they  all  continue  in  other  exer- 
cises, and  go  astray  the  long  years."  [Eternal  IFisdom,  p. 
123.1 


138     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

Cressy  (born  1605)  in  his  address  to  the  read- 
er: 

"I  was  desirous  to  have  told  thee  somewhat 
of  our  virgin  compiler  of  these  Revelations, 
but  after  all  the  search  I  could  make  I  could 
not  discover  anything  touching  her  more  than 
what  she  occasionally  sprinkles  in  the  book  it- 
self." 

However,  few  unknowns  convey  to  us  as 
clear  a  knowledge  of  their  character  as  this 
one.  Mother  Julian  was  an  anchoress,  a  re- 
cluse, living  in  a  cell  attached  to  the  little 
Norman  church  of  St.  Julian  in  Norwich.  In 
the  second  chapter  of  her  book,  which  is  called 
"Revelations  of  Divine  Love,"  of  which  four 
manuscripts  have  been  preserved  to  us,  she  tells 
us:  "This  Revelation  was  made  to  a  simple 
Christian,  unlettered,  living  in  deadlie  flesh 
the  year  of  our  Lord  1373,  the  13th  day  of 
Maie."  She  was  then,  she  says,  thirty  years 
of  age,  "which  creature  [had]  desired  before 
three  gifts  by  the  grace  of  God,"  out  of  her 
longing  for  more  love  to  God  and  her  trouble 
over  the  sight  of  man's  sin  and  sorrow.  Be- 
ginning with  this  intense  desire,  the  mark  of 
the  true  Mystic,  she  asked  of  God  these  three 
things:  First,  the  mind  of  the  Passion,  second, 


St.  Francis — Suso — Mother  Julian  139 

some  bodily  sickness,  and  third,  to  have  of 
God's  gift  three  wounds.  "These  two  desires," 
she  tells  us,  "of  the  Passion  and  the  sickness 
that  I  desired  of  him,  was  with  a  condition; 
for  one  thought  this  was  not  the  common  use 
of  prayer.  Therefore  I  said :  'Lord,  thou  know- 
est  w^hat  I  would,  and  if  that  it  be  Thy  will 
that  I  might  have  it;  and  if  it  be  not  Thy  will, 
good  Lord,  be  not  displeased  for  I  will  not 
but  as  thou  wilt.'  This  sickness  I  desired  in 
my  youth,  that  I  might  have  it  when  I  were 
thirty  years  old.  For  the  third  [gift]  by  the 
grace  of  God  and  teaching  of  Holie  Church, 
I  conceived  a  mightie  desire  to  receive  three 
wounds  in  my  life.  That  is  to  say,  the  wound 
of  verie  contrition,  the  wound  of  kind  com- 
passion, and  the  wound  of  wilful  longing  to 
God.  Right  as  I  asked  the  other  twaine  with 
a  condition,  so  asked  I  this  third  mightilie 
without  any  condition.  These  twaine  desires 
beforesaid  passed  from  my  mind,  and  the  third 
dwelled  continually."  ^'^ 

At  the  time  appointed  the  sickness  came. 
She  thought  she  was  near  her  end,  but  her  life 
was  spared  and  in  the  time  of  recovery  came 
the  other  gift,  the  "mind,"  i.  e.,  the  keen  imag- 

"  Revelations,  p  .6. 


140     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

ination  of  the  passion  of  her  Lord.  This  was 
given  her  in  what  she  calls  "shewings"  or  rev- 
elations. Fifteen  of  them  came  quickly  and 
consecutively,  lasting  from  about  4  o'clock  till 
after  9  o'clock  of  one  morning.  On  the  night 
of  the  next  day  came  another  shewing.  Then 
through  all  the  years  to  follow  (she  speaks 
once  of  fifteen  and  again  of  twenty  years  save 
three  months)  there  come  to  her  the  ever  clear- 
er understanding  of  what  the  visions  meant 
which  had  been  vouchsafed."^ 

Of  all  these  things,  as  Miss  Warrack,  one  of 
her  editors,  says  (p.  xix),  "Julian  gives  a 
careful  account,  suggestive  of  great  calmness 
and  power  of  observation  and  reflection  at  the 
time  as  well  as  discriminating  judgment  and 
certitude  afterwards." 

I  have  no  time  to  introduce  you  to  the 
woman  as  revealed  in  her  book.  Only  a  care- 
ful and  repeated  reading  of  it  will  give  you 
the  right  understanding  of  her  character, 
which,  in  spite  of  self-repression  and  extreme 
modesty,  shines  through  all  she  says.  She 
closes  an  early  chapter  with  these  words :  "And 
therefore  I  pray  you  all,  for  God's  sake,  and 
counsel   you   for   your  own  profit,   that   you 

^  Revelations,  p.  193. 


St.  Francis — Suso — Mother  Julian  141 

leave  the  beholding  of  a  wretch  that  it  was 
shewed  to;  and  mightily  wisely  and  meekly  be- 
hold in  God  that  of  his  courtesie,  love  and  end- 
less goodness  would  shew  it  generally  in  com- 
fort to  us  all :  for  it  is  God's  will  that  ye  take  it 
with  a  great  joy  and  liking,  as  Jesus  Christ 
hath  shewed  it  to  you."  "® 

It  is  to  the  teaching  of  her  book  that  I  would 
turn.  It  will  repay  the  most  careful  study. 
Its  theme  is  the  loving  nature  of  God.  At 
the  end  she  sums  it  up  in  these  words: 

"And  from  the  time  that  it  was  shewed  I 
desired  oftentimes  to  wit  in  what  was  our 
Lord's  meaning,  and  fifteen  years  after  and 
more  I  was  answered  in  ghostly  understanding, 
saying  thus:  'What?  Wouldst  thou  wit  thy 
Lord's  meaning  in  this  thing?  Wit  it  well: 
love  was  his  meaning.  Who  sheweth  it  thee? 
Love.  Wherefore  sheweth  He  it  thee?  For 
Love.  Hold  thee  therein,  thou  shalt  wit  more 
in  the  same.  But  thou  shalt  never  wit  therein 
other  without  end.'  Thus  was  I  learned  that 
Love  was  our  Lord's  meaning,"  -^  and  obliter- 
ating herself  she  leaves  this  teaching  for  all. 
All  her  "even  Christens"  are  objects  of  this 

'Ibid.,  p.  24. 
"  Ibid.,  p.  2ia 


142    The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

same  love,  and  all  should  rest  in  it  and  return 
it.  She  says  (p.  194)  :  ''And  for  this  know- 
ing are  we  most  blind.  For  some  of  us  believe 
that  God  is  all  mighty  and  may  do  all :  and  that 
He  is  all  wisdom  and  can  do  all:  but  that  He 
is  all  love  and  will  do  all,  there  wt  fail." 

In  marked  contrast  to  Suso  and  to  so  many 
of  the  medieval  Mystics,  Julian  lays  little  stress 
on  ascetic  practices.  Her  illness  seems  to  have 
satisfied  her  and  given  her  all  she  felt  she 
needed  of  bodily  infirmity.  Immediately  after 
it  came  all  the  visions  she  ever  had.  She  made 
no  attempt  to  induce  any  more.  She  lives  the 
rest  of  her  life  in  growing  appreciation  and 
understanding  of  what  these  sixteen  Revela- 
tions reveal  to  her.  In  this  she  is  very  differ- 
ent from  the  type.  She  differs  also  in  that 
her  life  was  monastic  in  the  highest  degree. 
She  was  immured  in  her  narrow  cell,  which, 
however,  had  probably  two  or  three  rooms, 
and  she  had  an  attendant  who  cared  for  her. 
Many  people  must  have  been  attracted  to  her, 
and  she  could  converse  with  them  through  her 
barred  window  and  could  join  in  the  prayers 
and  sacraments  offered  in  the  little  church 
through  the  "squint,"  which  is  still  in  existence. 
Her    knowledge    of    human    nature,    of    the 


St.  Francis — Suso — Mother  Julian  143 

thoughts  and  temptations  and  sins  of  men  and 
women,  is  lar£^e,  and  her  treatment  of  them  is 
wonderfully  keen  and  modern. 

She  begins  with  the  great  longing:  "For  I 
saw  him  and  sought  him;  for  we  be  now  so 
blind  and  so  unwise  that  we  can  never  seek 
God  till  what  time  that  he  of  his  goodness 
sheweth  him  to  us.  And  when  we  see  aught 
of  him  gVaciously  then  are  we  stirred  with  the 
same  grace  to  seek,  with  great  desire,  to  see 
him  more  blessed  fully.  And  thus  I  saw  him 
and  sought  him,  and  I  had  him  and  wanted 
him,  and  this  is  and  should  be  our  common 
working  in  this  life  as  to  my  sight."  ^^ 

Her  style,  as  this  example  shows,  is  most 
simple  and  her  use  of  words  constantly  apt 
and  illuminating.  Her  grasp  of  the  thought 
is  only  equalled  by  her  power  of  expressing 
it.  It  seems  to  me  that  no  one  has  more  per- 
fectly caught  the  strange  sensation  of  having 
God  and  yet  longing  for  God;  the  paradox  of 
the  priority  found  in  these  phrases:  *1  saw 
him  and  sought  him,  and  I  had  him  and  wanted 
him";  no  one  has  so  clearly  stated  the  loving 
priority  of  God's  seeking,  the  cause  and  there- 

*"  Revelations,  p.  27. 


144     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

fore  the  satisfaction  of  ours.  For  elsewhere 
she  says :  *'And  all  this  brought  our  Lord  sud- 
denly to  my  mind  and  shewed  these  words  and 
said:  *I  am  ground  of  thy  beseeking.  First 
it  is  my  will  that  thou  have  it;  and  sithen  I 
make  thee  to  will  it,  and  sithen  I  make  thee 
to  beseek  it,  and  thou  seekest  it,  how  should 
it  then  be  that  thou  shouldst  not  have  thy 
seeking?'  "  ^^  And  she  concludes  from  this 
that  "for  all  things  that  our  good  Lord  maketh 
us  to  beseek  himself  he  hath  ordained  it  to  us 
from  without  beginning."  ^"^ 

She  has  a  most  unmedieval  conception  of  sin. 
*'And  after  this  our  Lord  brought  to  my  mind 
the  longing  that  I  had  to  him  before  and  I 
saw  nothing  letted  me  but  sin.  And  so  I  be- 
held generally  in  us  all ;  and  methought  if  sin 
had  not  been  we  should  all  have  been  clean 
and  like  to  our  Lord  as  he  made  us.  And  thus 
in  my  folly  before  this  time  I  often  wondered 
why,  by  the  great  foresaid  wisdom  of  God, 
the  beginning  of  sin  was  not  letted,  for  then, 
thought  me,  that  all  should  have  been  well. 
.  .  .  But  Jesus  answered  by  this  word  and 
said :  'Sin  is  behovely  but  all  shall  be  well,  and 

'^Revelations,  p.  98. 
*'Fbid.,'p.  99- 


St.  Francis — Suso — Mother  Julian  145 

all  shall  be  well,  and  all  manner  of  thing  shall 
be  well.'  "  '^ 

"And  in  these  same  words  I  saw  an  high 
marvelous  privity  hid  in  God;  which  privity 
he  shall  openly  make  and  shall  be  known  to 
us  in  Heaven.  In  which  knowing  we  shall  ver- 
ily see  the  cause  why  he  suffered  sin  to  come. 
In  which  sight  we  shall  endlessly  have  joy."  ^* 

She  cannot  reconcile  the  hard  doctrines  of 
Holie  Church  with  this  sight  of  sin  in  the  light 
of  God's  love.  Many  chapters  are  given  up 
to  the  discussion,  but  at  the  end  all  she  can  say 
is  that  she  believes  she  is  right,  but  the  answer 
is  given  "full  mistely."  ^^ 

We  may  not  study  any  further,  only  let  me 
say  that  there  is  a  freshness  and  a  naive  sim- 
plicity in  her  treatment  of  the  Incarnation,  of 
the  Atonement,  and  the  Church,  and  that  her 
statements  are  startlingly  modern  and  interest- 
ing for  their  truth  to-day  as  well  as  for  their 
historical  value.  I  close  wnth  this  passage, 
coming  out  as  it  does  upon  the  high  plane  of 
the  Mystic  philosophy : 

"And  then  I  saw  full  surely  that  it  is  ready 

"Ibid.,  p.  68. 
^  Ibid.,  p.  70. 
"Cf.  p.  127,  and  note  fine  passage  on  p.  143. 


146     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

to  US  and  more  easie  to  come  to  the  knowing 
of  God  than  to  know  our  own  soul.  For  our 
soul  is  so  deeply  grounded  in  God  and  so  end- 
lessly treasured  that  we  may  not  come  to  the 
knowing  thereof  till  we  have  first  knowing  of 
God,  which  is  the  Maker  to  whom  it  is  oned. 
.  .  .  God  is  nearer  to  us  than  our  own  soul; 
for  he  is  ground  in  whom  our  soul  standeth, 
and  he  is  mean  that  keepeth  the  substance  and 
the  sensuality  together,  so  that  it  shall  never 
depart :  for  our  soul  sitteth  in  God  in  very  rest 
and  our  soul  standeth  in  God  in  sure  strength, 
and  our  soul  is  kindly  rooted  in  God  in  end- 
less love,  and  therefore,  if  we  will  have  know- 
ing of  our  soul  and  communing  and  dalliance 
therewith  it  behooveth  us  to  seek  in  it  our 
Lord  God  in  whom  it  is  inclosed."  ^® 

SUGGESTED  READING 

Jones:    Studies    in    Mystical    Religion.     Macmillan. 

1909. 
Jones:    Spiritual  Reformers   in   the    i6th   and   i/th 

Centuries.     Macmillan.     1914. 
Plotinus'  Select  Works.     Translation  by  Taylor.     G. 

Bell  &  Sons,  Ltd.     191 1. 

*' Revelations,  p.  150. 


St.  Francis — Suso — Mother  Julian  147 

The  Works  of  Dionyshis,  the  Areopagite.  Transla- 
tion by  Parker.    James  Parker  &  Co.    1897. 

Sabatier:  The  Life  of  St.  Francis  of  Assist.  C. 
Scribner's  Sons.    1894. 

Eckhart:  Translation  by  Field,  London,  1909. 

Tauler  and  twenty-five  of  his  sermons.  Translation 
by  Winkworth.     London,  1906. 

Suso:  Life.     Methuen  &  Co.,  Ltd.     1913. 

Suso:  Little  Book  of  Eternal  Wisdom.  The  Ange- 
lus  Co.     London,  1910. 

Ruysbroek:  The  Adornment  of  the  Spiritual  Mar- 
riage, etc.     J.  I\L  Dent  &  Sons.     1916. 

Ruysbroek:  Reflections  from  the  Mirror  of  a  Mystic. 
Thomas  Baker.     1905. 

Gardner  :  St.  Catherine  of  Siena.  J.  M.  Dent  &  Co. 
1907. 

VON  Hugel:  St.  Catherine  of  Genoa.  2  vols.  J.  M. 
Dent  &  Co.    1909. 

Graham  :  Santa  Teresa.     Eveleigh  Nash.     1907. 

Lewis:  St.  John  of  the  Cross.     London,  1897. 

MoLiNOs:  The  Spiritual  Guide.  Methuen  &  Co. 
1907. 

Martensen  :  Boehme.     Hodden  &  Stoughton.     1885. 

De  Sales:  Of  the  Love  of  God.  Longmans,  Green 
&  Co.    1899. 

Upham  :  Mme.  Guyon.     London,  1905. 

Richard  Rolle  :  The  Fire  of  Love  and  the  Mending 
of  Life.     Methuen  &  Co.     1914. 

Walter  Hilton:  The  Scale  of  Perfection.  West- 
minster Art  &  Book  Co.    1908. 


148     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

Mother  Julian  of  Norwich  :  Revelations  of  Divine 
Love.  Kegan  Paul,  Trench,  Triibner  Co. 
1902. 

Fox:  Journal.     2  vols.     London,  1901. 

Law  ;  The  Spirit  of  Prayer,  and,  The  Spirit  of  Love. 


V 

MODERN  MYSTICISM 

Mysticism  is  not  a  mere  matter  of  historical 
interest,  the  study  of  which  satisfies  only  an 
antiquarian  curiosity.  It  has  not  only  been  the 
most  compelling  force  in  religious  life,  but  it 
is  so  to-day.  I  believe  it  to  be  a  force  with 
which  we  must  reckon  increasingly.  We  are 
living  in  the  era  of  the  Spirit,  and  there  is 
surely  a  recrudescence  of  Mysticism  going  on 
all  about  us — a  just  and  justifiable  reaction 
after  the  century  of  hard  intellectualism  and 
the  century  of  even  harder  materialism.  I 
quote  DuPrel :  ''Mysticism  does  not  stand  be- 
side the  other  phenomena  of  Nature,  uncon- 
nected with  them,  but  forms  the  last  connec- 
tion between  all  phenomena.  So  far  from  It 
being  an  obsolete  view,  much  rather  obsolete 
are  those,  though  modern,  conceptions  in  which 
it  has  no  place.  So  far  is  Mysticism  from  be- 
longing only  to  the  surmounted  past,  but  much 
rather  will  it  attain  its  full  significance  in  the 
149 


150     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

future.  As  well  the  Kantian  'Critique  of  Rea- 
son' as  the  physiological  theory  of  sense  per- 
ception and  Darwinism  point  to  a  view  of  the 
world  into  which  Mysticism  will  be  organically 
fitted." ' 

It  would  seem  worth  while,  then,  to  see  what 
Mysticism  looks  like  to-day,  where  and  how 
it  is  showing  itself,  and  possibly  to  enter  into 
the  movement  ourselves.  And  this  not  only 
for  ourselves,  but  as  ministers  in  a  day  when 
''thousands  are  craving  for  a  basis  of  belief 
which  shall  rest  not  on  tradition,  on  author- 
ity, on  historical  evidence,  but  on  the  ascer- 
tainable facts  of  human  experience."  ^ 

It  is  wise  for  us  to  have  gained  that  experi- 
ence, or  at  least  to  know  how  others  have 
gained  it,  and  to  be  able  to  explain  the  process. 
Mysticism  having  no  history,  being  sporadic 
and  yet  universal,  any  one  who  has  studied 
it  carefully  and  sympathetically  can  generally 
recognize  it  when  it  appears.  When  you  see 
it  here  or  there,  early  or  late,  you  feel  per- 
fectly at  home  with  it.  You  say,  "Here  is 
the  same  old  thing."  It  suffers  a  little,  per- 
haps, from  sameness.     Harnack's  statement, 

*  Du  Prel :    Philosophy  of  Mysticism,  p.  xxvi. 
"Inge:    Studies  of  English  Mystics,  p.  238. 


Modem  Mysticism  151 

"Mysticism  is  always  the  same,"  is  found  to 
be  true  all  the  way  along.  That  is,  in  its  es- 
sence it  is  the  same.  In  its  manifestations, 
and  in  the  use  made  of  it,  and  in  the  explana- 
tions offered  regarding  it,  it  is  very  various. 
Men  of  very  different  characters  have  been 
Mystics.  Dante  was  a  Mystic,  but  so  was 
Paracelsus.  Mother  Julian  of  Norwich,  im- 
mured in  a  cell,  and  St.  Catherine  of  Siena, 
moulding  the  politics  of  Europe  and  making 
the  Pope  do  what  she  told  him,  are  both  typi- 
cal. Wordsworth  and  Browning  were  both 
Mystics,  but  how  different  and  what  different 
use  they  make  of  their  Mysticism!  So  that 
when  we  come  to  study  the  Mysticism  of  the 
present  day  you  have  only  to  look  clearly  and 
you  will  not  be  surprised  to  find  it,  nor  be 
confused  by  finding  it  under  many  different 
forms.  It  appears  in  all  departments  of 
thought  and  life.    I  begin  with  Philosophy. 

One  ought  here,  of  course,  to  start  with 
Kant,  as  everybody  does,  but  this  might  lead 
to  the  suspicion  that  I  regarded  him  as  a  Mys- 
tic. And  yet  I  should  like  to  say  that  Kant  has 
done  great  service  to  the  modern  advance  of 
philosophical  Mysticism  when  he  used  the 
weapons  of  intellect  against  itself,  and,  like 


152     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

the  fabled  scorpion,  stung,  the  logical  mind 
with  its  own  tail;  he  opened  the  way,  as  he 
himself  taught,  for  another  knowledge  of  Re- 
ality which  Mysticism  has  not  been  slow  to 
take  advantage  of.  Still  farther  was  the  way 
opened  by  von  Hartmann  in  his  "Philosophy  of 
the  Unconscious."  He  may  not  have  practised 
what  he  preached,  but  he  was  helping  dis- 
tinctly toward  a  better  grounding  of  Mysti- 
cism in  the  philosophical  thought  of  the  age. 
The  quaint,  unmystical,  and  therefore  entirely 
unsympathetic  Professor  Bowen  of  the  Har- 
vard of  my  day  said  of  him : 

''Hartmann  attempts  to  prove  that  the  germs 
both  of  all  philosophy  and  all  revealed  religion 
are  to  be  found  in  the  heated  fancies  of  the 
Mystics,  these  fancies  again  being  due  to  in- 
spirations from  the  Unconscious."  ^ 

Fichte,  especially  in  his  "Characteristics  of 
the  Present  Day,"  and  in  "The  Way  Towards 
the  Blessed  Life,"  is  full  of  mystical  thought, 
deeply  grounded  in  philosophy  and  Johannean 
in  its  theology. 

He  says:  "One  of  the  most  favorite  and 
customary  tricks  of  tongue- fence  among  these 
fanatics  is  this:  to  give  to  the  thing  which  is 

'Bowen:     Modern  Philosophy,  p.  456. 


Modern  Mysticism  153 

hateful  only  to  them,  a  name  which  is  hateful 
to  all  men,  in  order  thereby  to  decry  it,  and 
render  it  suspected.  The  existing  store  of  such 
tricks  and  nicknames  is  inexhaustible,  and  is 
constantly  enriched  by  fresh  additions;  and  it 
would  be  in  vain  to  attempt  here  any  complete 
enumeration  of  them.  Only  one  of  the  most 
common  of  these  odious  nicknames  I  will  here 
notice,  i.e.,  the  charge  that  this  doctrine  which 
we  teach  is  Mysticism."  * 

"In  that  which  the  Holy  Man  does,  lives 
and  loves,  God  appears,  no  longer  surrounded 
by  shadows  nor  hidden  by  a  garment,  but  in 
his  own,  immediate,  and  eflficient  Life;  and  the 
question  that  is  unanswerable  from  the  mere 
empty  and  imaginary  conception  of  God — 
'What  is  God?' — is  here  answered:  'He  is  that 
which  he  who  is  devoted  to  Him  and  inspired 
by  Him  does.'  Wouldst  thou  behold  God  face 
to  face,  as  He  is  in  Himself?  Seek  Him  not 
beyond  the  skies;  thou  canst  find  Him  wher- 
ever thou  art.  Behold  the  life  of  His  devoted 
ones,  and  thou  beholdest  Him;  resign  thyself 
to  Him,  and  thou  wilt  find  Him  within  thine 
own  breast."  ^ 

*  The  Way  Towards  the  Blessed  Life,  p.  32. 

•  Ibid.,  p.  go 


154     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

There  is  in  that  last  passage  the  distinct 
echo  of  Eckhart  and  Suso.  Schleiermacher's 
influence  is  also  to  be  reckoned  with  and  is 
clearly  traced  through  Maurice  and  Kingsley  to 
our  own  Professor  Allen ;  and  Dr.  Allen  in  his 
turn  has  called  attention  to  the  fact,  likely  to 
be  overlooked,  that  in  Jonathan  Edwards  Mys- 
ticism obtained  a  foothold  in  this  country  and 
in  the  ultra-Calvinistic  thought  of  his  day. 
In  his  "Life  of  Jonathan  Edwards,"  Profes- 
sor Allen  says  (p.  24) : 

"We  may  trace  in  his  experience  the  un- 
mistakable marks  of  the  mystic  in  every  age 
— union  with  God,  absorption  as  it  were  into 
the  inmost  essence  of  the  divine.  He  finds  ex- 
pression in  the  intense  language  of  the  Psalm- 
ist: 'My  soul  breaketh  for  the  longing  it 
hath ;  my  soul  waiteth  for  the  Lord,  more  than 
they  who  watch  for  the  morning.' 

"The  seeking  and  the  v^aiting  were  at  last 
rewarded.  He  was  reading  one  day  the  words 
of  Scripture,  'Now  unto  the  King  eternal,  im- 
mortal, invisible,  the  only  wise  God,  be  honor 
and  glory  forever,  Amen,'  when  there  came 
to  him  for  the  first  time  a  sort  of  inward, 
sweet  delight  in  God  and  divine  things.  A 
sense  of  the  divine  glory  was,  as  it  were,  dif- 


Modem  Mysticism  155 

fused  through  him.  He  thought  how  happy 
he  should  be  if  he  might  be  wrapt  up  to  God 
in  heaven,  and  be,  as  it  were,  swallowed  up 
in  him  forever.  He  began  to  have  an  inward, 
sweet  sense  of  Christ  and  the  work  of  redemp- 
tion. The  Book  of  Canticles  attracted  him  as 
a  fit  expression  for  his  mood.  It  seemed  to 
him  as  if  he  were  in  a  kind  of  vision,  alone 
in  the  mountains  or  some  solitary  wilderness, 
conversing  sweetly  with  Christ  and  wrapt  and 
swallowed  up  in  God." 

If  William  James  will  not  allow  himself  to 
be  called  a  Mystic,  he  is  surely  the  cause  of 
Mysticism  in  many  others.  He  says,  in  his 
"Varieties  of  Religious  Experience": 

"One  may  say  truly,  I  think,  that  personal 
religious  experience  has  its  root  and  centre  in 
mystical  states  of  consciousness;  so  for  us, 
who  in  these  lectures  are  treating  personal  ex- 
perience as  the  exclusive  subject  of  our  study, 
such  states  of  consciousness  ought  to  form 
the  vital  chapter  from  which  the  other  chap- 
ters get  their  light.  Whether  my  treatment 
of  mystical  states  will  shed  more  light  or  dark- 
ness, I  do  not  know,  for  my  own  constitution 
shuts  me  out  from  their  enjoyment  almost 
entirely,  and  I  can  speak  of  them  only  at  sec- 


156    The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

ond  hand.  But  though  forced  to  look  upon  the 
subject  so  externally,  I  will  be  as  objective  and 
receptive  as  I  can ;  and  I  think  I  shall  at  least 
succeed  in  convincing  you  of  the  reality  of  the 
states  in  question,  and  of  the  paramount  im- 
portance of  their  function."  ® 

He  was  too  clear-sighted  and  honest  to  count 
himself  more  than  an  onlooker,  but  there  is 
much  pathos  in  his  evident  longing  to  be  some- 
thing more.  These  words  of  his,  which  are 
quoted  by  Professor  Pratt,  show  more  than 
sympathy : 

''James's  respect  for  the  mystic  was  an  ex- 
cellent instance  of  his  open  mind  and  empirical 
point  of  view;  for  he  was  himself  no  mystic 
and  always  disclaimed  having  what  he  called 
the  'leaky'  form  of  consciousness.  In  answer 
to  a  certain  question  in  my  questionnaire  on 
this  point  he  replies  as  follows:  'I  believe  in 
God  not  because  I  have  experienced  His  pres- 
ence, but  because  I  need  it  so  that  it  "must" 
be  true.'  'The  whole  line  of  testimony  on  this 
point  (the  existence  of  such  an  experience) 
is  so  strong  that  I  am  not  able  to  pooh-pooh  it 
away.  No  doubt  there  is  a  germ  in  me  of 
something  similar  that  makes  admiring  re- 

" James:     Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  p.  379- 


Modern  Mysticism  157 

sponse.'  This  'something'  in  him,,  which  at 
least  corresponded  to  the  mystic's  conscious- 
ness of  God,  he  once  described  to  me  in  an- 
other fashion.  It  is,'  he  said,  'very  vague 
and  impossible  to  describe  or  put  into  words. 
In  this  it  is  somewhat  like  another  experience 
that  I  have  constantly,  a  tune  that  is  always 
singing  in  the  back  of  my  mind  but  which  I 
can  never  identify  or  whistle  or  get  rid  of. 
Something  like  that  is  my  feeling  for  God,  or 
a  Beyond.  Especially  at  times  of  moral  crisis 
it  comes  to  me,  as  the  sense  of  an  unknown 
something  backing  me  up.  It  is  most  indefi- 
nite, to  be  sure,  and  rather  faint.  And  yet  I 
know  that  if  it  should  cease  there  would  be 
a  great  hush,  a  great  void  in  my  life.'  "  "^ 

Moreover,  James's  colleague  Royce,  though 
differing  from  him  in  so  many  ways,  yet  agrees 
with  him  in  his  high  estimate  of  the  value  of 
Mysticism,  its  influence  in  the  past  and  its  im- 
portance for  the  religion  of  the  future: 

"It  is  the  conception  of  men  whose  piety  has 
been  won  after  long  conflict,  whose  thoughts 
have  been  dissected  by  a  very  keen  inner  scep- 
ticism, whose  single-minded  devotion  to  an 
abstraction  has  resulted  from  a  vast  experi- 

'  The  Hibbert  Journal.  October,  1911,  p.  232. 


158     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

ence  of  painful  complications  of  life.  ...  It 
has  been  the  ferment  of  the  faiths,  the  fore- 
runner of  spiritual  liberty,  the  inaccessible 
refuge  of  the  nobler  heretics,  the  inspirer 
through  poetry,  of  countless  youth  who  know 
no  metaphysics,  the  teacher,  through  the  devo- 
tional books,  of  the  despairing,  the  comforter 
of  those  who  are  weary  of  finitude;  it  has  de- 
termined directly  or  indirectly,  more  than  half 
of  the  technical  theology  of  the  Church."  ® 

These  are  all  statements  of  outsiders,  I  con- 
fess, but  they  are  valuable  as  coming  from  keen 
observers,  and  all  the  more  valuable  as  being 
unprejudiced.  Mysticism's  power  lies  in  its 
practice,  yet  these  men,  from  scientific  study, 
have  come  to  realize  that  we  must  no  longer, 
as  in  the  past,  regard  it  as  the  vagary  of  a 
few  unbalanced  religionists,  but  as  a  psycho- 
logical form  of  religion  which  to-day,  even 
more  than  in  the  past,  must  be  recognized  and 
reckoned  with  as  a  most  important  factor  in 
man's  religious  life. 

We  come  even  closer  to  the  heart  of  Mysti- 
cism when  we  study  the  philosophies  of  Eucken 
and  Bergson.  Here  again,  while  we  may  not 
claim  them  as  Mystics,  in  our  sense  of  the 

'  Royce :    The  World  and  the  Individual,  Vol.  I.  p.  85. 


Modern  Mysticism  159 

word,  these  two  men  are  laying  foundations  in 
philosophy  and  psychology  for  a  deeper  and 
truer  Mysticism  to  come.  They  are  popular 
teachers  largely  because  they  gratify  this  long- 
ing of  the  modern  thinker  for  the  spiritual,  the 
Mystic's  turning  away  from  the  logical  rea- 
son, his  belief  that  true  knowledge  can  come 
only  from  vital  communion  with  the  object 
sought.  This  position  is  taken  up  especially  by 
Bergson  and  given  standing  and  popularity 
to-day.  It  will  not  be  necessary  to  give  any  re- 
statement of  the  thought  of  these  two  men. 
Their  works  and  teaching  are  well  known,  but 
to  one  familiar  with  the  Mystic  thought,  the 
trend  of  both  is  clearly  in  that  direction. 

In  Eucken  I  will  only  call  your  attention  to 
these  three  passages,  which  are  characteristic : 

"It  seems  as  if  man  could  never  escape  from 
himself,  and  yet  when  shut  into  the  monotony 
of  his  own  sphere  he  is  overwhelmed  with  a 
sense  of  emptiness.  The  only  possible  remedy 
here  is  to  radically  alter  the  conception  of  man 
himself,  to  distinguish  within  him  the  narrow- 
er and  the  larger  life;  the  life  that  is  strait- 
ened and  finite  can  never  transcend  itself,  and 
the  infinite  life  through  which  he  enjoys  com- 
munion with  the  immensity  and  truth  of  the 


i6o     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

universe.  Can  a  man  rise  to  this  spiritual 
level  ?  On  the  possibility  of  his  doing  so  rests 
all  our  hope  of  supplying  any  meaning  or  value 
to  life.  At  least  we  recognize  to-day  the  hope- 
lessness of  trying  to  supply  it  from  any  source 
external  to  the  individual."  ^ 

Speaking  of  Mysticism  Eucken  says:  *'But 
even  when  this  loss  is  recognized,  this  mode  of 
thought  remains  an  indispensable  element  in 
all  development  of  independent  spirituality.  It 
not  only  persists  throughout  the  Middle  Ages 
but  comes  into  prominence  in  modern  times  in 
new  shapes  and  shows  that  it  is  still  powerful 
even  at  the  present  day.  If  we  give  up  the  im- 
mediate presence  of  Infinite  being  in  the  soul, 
the  life  of  the  soul  must  inevitably  and  imme- 
diately lose  in  depth  and  spontaneity."  ^^ 

Again  Eucken  speaks  of  Mysticism,  though 
not  calling  it  by  name,  when  he  says : 

*'But  there  is  a  further  and  more  specific 
manifestation  of  religion,  for  it  is  the  function 
of  religion  not  only  to  infuse  a  sense  of  the 
Whole  into  the  work  of  life;  but  foregoing  all 
appeal  to  the  medium  of  work,  to  realize  the 
Whole  through  direct  communion  and  thereby 

•  The  Meaning  and  Value  of  Life,  p.  77- 

"  The  Life  of  the  Spirit,  p.  48. 


Modern  Mysticism  i6i 

unsealing  the  sources  of  a  deeper  life.  So 
first  arose  a  distinctive  or  characteristic  re- 
ligion and  with  it  that  complete  transcendence 
of  the  world  which  issues  in  pure  inwardness 
of  life;  with  it  also  a  quickening  of  the  Abso- 
lute in  human  nature,  vivifying  what  else  must 
have  remained  at  the  stage  of  finite  exist- 
ence." ^^ 

Where  Eucken  misses  the  point  by  avoiding 
any   discussion   of    this    ''direct   communion'* 

"  The  Meaning  and  Value  of  Life.  p.  125. 

"It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  most  recent  teaching  of 
Rudolph  Eucken  is  in  this  respect  a  pure  and  practical  mys- 
ticism, though  his  conclusions  have  not  been  reached  by  the 
mystic's  road.  The  'redemptive  remaking  of  personality'  in 
conformity  with  the  transcendent  or  spiritual  life  of  the  uni- 
verse, is  for  him  the  central  necessity  of  human  life.  The 
life  of  reality,  he  says,  is  spiritual  and  heroic;  an  act,  not  a 
thought.  Further,  Eucken,  like  the  mystics,  declares  that 
there  is  a  definite  transcendental  principle  in  man.  He  calls 
it  the  Gemiith,  the  heart  or  core  of  personality ;  and  there, 
he  says,  'God  and  man  initially  meet.'  He  invites  us,  as  we 
have  seen,  to  distinguish  in  man  two  separate  grades  of  being, 
'the  narrower  and  the  larger  life,  the  life  that  is  straitened 
and  finite,  and  can  never  transcend  itself,  and  to  an  infinite 
life  through  which  he  enjoys  communion  with  immensity  and 
the  truth  of  the  universe.  At  bottom,  all  the  books  of  the 
mystics  tell  us  no  more  and  no  less;  but  their  practical  in- 
structions in  the  art  of  self-transcendence,  by  which  man  may 
appropriate  that  infinite  life,  far  excel  those  of  the  philoso- 
pher in  lucidity  and  exactness.'"  [Underbill:  Mysticism, 
p.  64.1 

Note  also  Hermann's  words  in  Eucken  atui  Bergson,  p.  94. 


i62     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

with  God,  and  by  omitting,  apparently  with  in- 
tention, any  study  of  experimental  religion, 
holding  himself  quite  aloof  and  leaving  us 
with  the  empty  and  unanswered  question,  "Can 
man  rise  to  this  spiritual  level?"  Bergson,  on 
the  contrary,  plunges  us  at  once  into  the  closest 
intimacy.  He  tells  us  that  we  cannot  know 
the  real  things  by  keeping  at  a  distance  from 
them,  but  that  only  by  sympathy  can  we  be- 
come on  intimate  terms  with  them,  and  so  by 
living  them  know  them. 

We  must  remember  here,  before  we  go  any 
further,  that  Bergson's  system,  while  clear,  is 
incomplete.  He  is  consistent  in  refusing  to  let 
it  be  judged  "spatially"  and  as  "static."  ^" 

What  its  later  developments  may  lead  him 
to  when  he  follows  it  into  the  realm  of  religion 
we  cannot  tell,  but  as  far  as  he  has  gone  he 
seems  to  me  to  be  opening  a  way  for  the  use 
and  development  in  religion  of  that  mysterious 
part  of  us  we  glanced  at  in  the  third  lecture, 
that  penumbra  about  our  logical  reason  which 
he  calls  Intuition.  That  far  we  may  study 
him  and  claim  him  as  more  directly  a  guide 
into  the  philosophy  of  Mysticism  than  any 
modern  thinker. 

"  Creative  Evolution,  p.  xiv. 


Modern  Mysticism  163 

This  is  not  the  place,  as  I  said,  to  explain 
his  theories,  nor  do  I  need  to  do  more  than  call 
your  attention  to  what,  for  our  purpose,  is  the 
vital  point  in  them.  Mysticism  has  been  dis- 
credited by  philosophers  and  by  the  man  in  the 
street,  by  both  because  it  was  impatient  of  rea- 
son and  claimed  to  use  a  power  or  faculty 
which  worked  while  reason  was  in  abeyance. 
Bergson  says  that  it  is  through  intuition  that 
the  great  advances  in  philosophy  have  been 
made,  and  the  great  works  of  art  produced. 
He  contends  that  theology,  the  knowledge  we 
can  get  of  God  by  the  intellect,  ''spatial  think- 
ing," is  incomplete  and  unsatisfying,  that  it 
does  not  reach  Reality.  This  is  what  the  Mys- 
tics have  been  laughed  at  for  saying.  They 
have  felt  and  said  that  they  had  another  fac- 
ulty, deeper,  more  far-reaching,  a  faculty 
which  really  extended  to  God  because  it  was 
the  God-part  of  them.  Bergson  is  not  ready 
to  go  as  far  as  this,  perhaps,  yet,  but  he  claims 
for  intuition  the  same  priority:  "Concepts 
are  the  deposited  sediment  of  intuition;  intui- 
tion produces  the  concepts,  not  the  concepts  in- 
tuition." ^^ 

"Intuition,  if  it  could  be  prolonged  beyond  a 

"  Le  Roy :    The  New  Philosophy  of  Henri  Bergson,  p.  53. 


i64    The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

few  instants,  would  not  only  make  the  philoso- 
pher agree  with  his  own  thought,  but  also  all 
philosophers  agree  with  each  other.  Such  as 
it  is,  fugitive  and  incomplete,  it  is  in  each  sys- 
tem what  is  worth  more  than  the  system  and 
survives  it."  ^*  This  sentence  from  Bergson's 
explanation  of  his  own  system  in  the  little  "In- 
troduction to  a  New  Philosophy"  is  distinctly 
mystical  and  in  harmony  with  all  we  have  been 
studying:  "It  therefore  follows  that  an  ab- 
solute should  be  apprehended  only  by  an  intui- 
tion, while  all  else  is  dependent  upon  analysis. 
Intuition  is  that  art  of  intellectual  sympathy 
by  which  one  transports  one's  self  into  the  in- 
terior of  an  object  in  order  to  become  harmoni- 
ous with  what  is  peculiar  to  it  alone  and  so 
inexpressible"  (p.  lo). 

It  is  the  cultivation  of  this  "art"  of  intui- 
tion which  has  been  my  theme  from  the  very 
beginning.  Dr.  Dodson  has  summed  up  the 
teaching  in  these  words : 

"The  implication  is  that  so  far  as  we  do 
know  what  anything  is,  what  we  are,  what  life 
is  in  us  and  in  the  universe,  what  God  is,  we 
know  it  through  insight  and  not  by  reasoning. 
The  philosophic  view  of  the  world  would  be 

"  Dodson :    Bergson  and  the  Modern  Spirit,  p.  278. 


Modern  Mysticism  165 

that  of  the  man  in  whom  both  of  these  com- 
plementary powers  of  the  mental  Hfe  were  well 
developed.  His  intellect  would  look  out  and 
ask  questions  about  the  material  world,  ques- 
tions which  the  intellect,  using  scientific  meth- 
ods, can  answer.  The  same  intellect  would 
also  look  in  and  ask  questions  about  the  heart 
of  life,  both  of  self  and  of  God,  and  instinct, 
developed  into  intuition,  would  give  a  true  and 
satisfying  reply."  '^ 

But  it  is  time  we  turned  from  the  philoso- 
phers to  see  Mysticism  manifested  in  other  men 
and  other  ways.  Poetry  reflects  the  spirit  of 
an  age  and  is  prophetic  of  that  which  is  to 
come.^*'  The  poets  are  seers — inseers,  and  fore- 
seers.  One  is  tempted,  so  rich  is  this  field,  to 
go  farther  back  than  would  be  strictly  honest 
in  a  lecture  called  "Modern  Mysticism."  There 
are  fascinating  and  significant  utterances, 
worthy  of  more  study  than  they  have  ever  re- 
ceived, in  our  English  poets  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  Crashaw,  with  his  "Flaming  Heart" 
inspired  by  Santa  Teresa;  Vaughan  the  Silu- 
rist,  with  his  wonderful  poem, 

"  Dodson :     Bergson  and  the  Modern  Spirit,  p.  130. 
"Jones:    Spiritual  Reformers,  p.  321. 


i66     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

"I  saw  Eternity  the  other  night 
Like  a  great  ring  of  pure  and  endless  hght, 
All  calm  as  it  was  bright"; 

and  Donne  and  the  newly  discovered  Thomas 
Traherne.  But  we  must  not  study  them,  for 
too  much  presses  from  the  last  century. 

William  Blake  was  living  until  1827,  so  we 
may  count  him  as  the  first  of  our  moderns. 
Strange  and  wild  were  his  mystic  outbursts, 
but  he  learned  from  Swedenborg  and  Boehme 
and  Law,  and  although  much  of  his  art  is  too 
strange  to  be  true,  there  are  flashes  which  have 
never  been  excelled,  and  we  must  note  that  he 
alone,  of  all  Mystics,  has  not  only  tried  to  ex- 
press his  visions  in  words,  but  to  put  them  into 
pictures  of  strange  form  and  color.  His  "An- 
cient of  Days"  is  as  much  a  poem  as  his  words 

"To  see  a  world  in  a  grain  of  sand 
And  heaven  in  a  wild  flower, 
Hold  infinity  in  the  palm  of  your  hand 
And  eternity  in  an  hour." 

Wordsworth  is  much  more  than  a  nature 
poet.  He  is  a  seer,  an  acute  psychologist.  Far 
greater  than  his  passion  for  Nature  is  his  pas- 
sion for  God,  and  he  reached  God  by  the  com- 


Modern  Mysticism  167 

mon  steps  of  the  Mystic.     Caroline  Spurgeon 
speaks  thus  truly  of  him: 

"He  found  that  when  his  mind  was  freed 
from  preoccupation  with  disturbing  objects, 
petty  cares,  'little  enmities  and  low  desires,' 
that  he  could  then  reach  a  condition  of  equi- 
librium, which  he  describes  as  a  'wise  passive- 
ness,'  or  a  'happy  stillness  of  the  mind.'  He 
believed  this  condition  could  be  deliberately 
induced  by  a  kind  of  relaxation  of  the  will, 
and  by  a  stilling  of  the  busy  intellect  and  striv- 
ing desires.  It  is  a  purifying  process,  an  emp- 
tying out  of  all  that  is  worrying,  self-asser- 
tive, and  self-seeking.  H  we  can  habitually 
train  ourselves  and  attune  our  minds  to  this 
condition,  we  may  at  any  moment  come  across 
something  which  will  arouse  our  emotions,  and 
it  is  then,  when  our  emotions — thus  purified — 
are  excited  to  the  point  of  passions,  that  our 
vision  becomes  sufficiently  clear  to  enable  us 
to  gain  actual  experience  of  the  'central  peace 
subsisting  forever  at  the  heart  of  endless  agi- 
tation.' "  '^  What  Wordsworth  needed  to  fix 
his  gaze  upon  was  some  natural  object, — a 
sounding  w^aterfall,  a  mountain  top,  a  small 
celandine.    These  were  to  him  what  the  cruci- 

"  spurgeon:    Mysticism  in  English  Literature,  p.  61. 


1 68    The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

fix  was  to  St.  Frarucis  or  the  bread  on  the  altar 
to  St.  Catherine.  His  three  states  are  clearly 
traced:  First,  Renunciation,  the  trampling 
down  of  passion.  It  is  not  conceit,  but  truth- 
telling  with  a  purpose,  when  he  says : 

"Never  did  I,  in  quest  of  right  or  wrong, 
Tamper  with  conscience  from  a  private  aim. 
Nor  was  in  any  public  hope  the  dupe 
Of  selfish  passions ;  nor  did  ever  yield 
Wilfully  to  mean  cares  or  low  pursuits." 

Then  come  Concentration  and  Receptivity. 
It  is  pure  Mysticism  when  he  says : 

"Nor  less  I  deem  that  there  are  Powers 
Which  of  themselves  our  minds  impress ; 
That  we  can  feed  this  mind  of  ours 
In  a  wise  passiveness. 

"Think  you,  'mid  all  this  mighty  sum 
Of  things  for  ever  speaking, 
That  nothing  of  itself  will  come, 
But  we  must  still  be  seeking?"  " 

And  then  in  many  passages,  from  which  I 
choose  only  one,  he  describes  the  consciousness 
of  the  Infinite,  the  Unitive  state : 

^"The  Poetical  Works  of  Wm.  Wordsworth,  Vol.   II,  p. 
i8o. 


Modern  Mysticism  169 

"And  I  have  felt 
A  presence  that  disturbs  me  with  the  joy 
Of  elevated  thoughts ;  a  sense  sublime 
Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man : 
A  motion  and  a  spirit,  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things."" 

I  need  not  say  much  of  Tennyson,  because 
he  had  not  the  mystical  temperament,  but  he 
is  all  the  more  a  proof  of  my  thesis.  Because 
he  was  keenly  alive  to  the  intellectual  move- 
ments of  his  time,  he  is  truly  representative  of 
the  Victorian  age,  and  while  perhaps  he  had 
not  the  root  of  the  matter  in  him — certainly  he 
did  not  at  first — he  grew  steadily  into  the  Mys- 
tic thought.  In  In  Mcmoriam  we  have  the 
struggle  between  the  intellect  and  the  heart, 
and  the  final  victory  lies  with  the  latter: 

"A  warmth  within  the  soul  would  melt 
The  freezing  reason's  colder  part, 
And  like  a  man  in  wrath  the  heart 
Stood  up  and  answered :  I  have  felt." 

*•  The  Poetical  Works  of  Wm.   Wordsworth,  Vol.  I,  pp. 
152-153. 


lyo     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

And  it  was  to  the  scientists  that  he  dared  to 
say: 

"Speak  to  him,  thou,  for  he  hears 
And  spirit  with  Spirit  can  meet — 
Closer  is  he  than  breathing. 

And  nearer  than  hands  and  feet," 

until  at  the  last,  in  the  Ancient  Sage,  he  de- 
clares : 

"And  more,  my  son!  for  more  than  once  when  I 
Sat  all  alone,  revolving  in  myself 
The  word  that  is  the  symbol  of  myself, 
The  mortal  limit  of  the  Self  was  loosed. 
And  past  into  the  Nameless,  as  a  cloud 
Melts  into  Heaven.     I  touch'd  my  limbs,  the  limbs 
Were  strange,  not  mine — and  yet  no  shade  of  doubt, 
But  utter  clearness,  and  thro'  loss  of  Self 
The  gain  of  such  large  life  as  match'd  with  ours 
Were  Sun  to  spark — unshadowable  in  words, 
Themselves  but  shadows  of  a  shadow-world."  ^'^ 

I  turn  to  Browning,  whom  I  consider  the 
most  typical  and  consistent  Mystic  of  all  our 
poets.  His  work  is  one  consistent  whole  from 
beginning  to  end,  and  it  is  all  built  on  the  Mys- 
tic bases  of  optimism,  the  supremacy  of  love 
over  evil,  and  the  supremacy  of  intuition  over 
the  intellect.     There  is  a  remarkable  resem- 

*"  The  Works  of  Tennyson.  Vol.  VIII,  p.  48. 


Modern  Mysticism  171 

blance  between  him  and  Mother  Julian  of  Nor- 
wich. I  could  illustrate  every  trait  of  her 
Mysticism  by  quotations  from  Browning's 
poems,  instead  of  from  her  Revelations.  There 
is  the  same  sense  of  unity  under  diversity,  the 
same  attitude  towards  temptation  and  sin,  the 
same  calm  optimism,  the  same  insistence  on  the 
fact  that  "Love  was  his  meaning,"  the  same 
trust  in  the  power  of  intuition.  I  dare  not  be- 
gin to  quote,  for  I  am  a  lover  of  Browning  and 
you  know  what  they  are  when  they  get  started. 
From  Paracelsus  to  Asolando  you  will  find 
these  thoughts  appearing  in  the  most  unusual 
places,  in  "Old  Pictures  in  Florence,"  and  "A 
Grammarian's  Funeral,"  as  well  as  in  ''Jo^^^i" 
nes  Agricola,"  "Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,"  **A  Pillar 
in  Sebzevah"  and  "A  Death  in  the  Desert." 
But  to  quote  unless  fully,  and  to  say  more  than 
this  unless  the  discussion  be  carried  through, 
would  be  an  injustice  both  to  Browning  and  to 
Mysticism.  To  leave  him  now  for  the  rest,  I 
can  give  you  only  samples  of  how  many  men 
of  many  minds  have  been  touched  by  this  feel- 
ing and  have  given  it  various  expression.  That 
strange  character,  Emily  Bronte,  from  her 
Yorkshire  wilderness,  voices  it  thus  in  her 
"Last  Lines" : 


172     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

"O  God  within  my  breast, 

Almighty,  ever-present  Deity, 
Life — that  in  me  has  rest, 
As  I — undying  Hfe — have  power  in  Thee. 


"Though  earth  and  man  were  gone, 

And  suns  and  universes  ceased  to  be. 
And  Thou  wert  left  alone. 

Every  existence  would  exist  in  Thee." 

Keble's  "Two  Worlds  are  Ours"  is  familiar 
to  all,  and  Faber  is  never  so  sweet  and  simple 
as  when  giving  expression  to  his  Mysticism, 
which  is  more  Protestant  than  Catholic : 

"But  God  is  never  so  far  off 
As  even  to  be  near; 
He  is  within:  our  spirit  is 
The  home  He  holds  most  dear. 

"To  think  of  Him  as  by  our  side 
Is  almost  as  untrue, 
As  to  remove  His  throne  beyond 
Those  skies  of  starry  blue. 

"So  all  the  while  I  thought  myself 
Homeless,  forlorn,  and  weary. 
Missing  my  joy,  I  walked  the  earth 
Myself  God's  sanctuary."  ^^ 

"  Faber's  Hymns,  p.  196. 


Modern  Mysticism  173 

Matthew  Arnold  rather  unexpectedly  shows 
ihis  side  of  his  character  to  us  occasionally, 
as  in  these  lines  from  "The  Buried  Life": 

"Only — but  this  is  rare — 
When  a  beloved  hand  is  laid  in  ours, 
When,  jaded  with  the  rush  and  glare 
Of  the  interminable  hours. 
Our  eyes  can  in  another's  eyes  read  clear, 
When  our  world-deafen'd  ear 
Is  by  the  tones  of  a  loved  voice  caress'd — 
A  bolt  is  shot  back  somewhere  in  our  breast, 
And  a  lost  pulse  of  feeling  stirs  again. 
The  eye  sinks  inward,  and  the  heart  lies  plain, 
And  what  wc  mean,  we  say,  and  what  we  would,  we 

know. 
A  man  becomes  aware  of  his  life's  flow, 
And  hears  its  winding  murmur;  and  he  sees 
The  meadows  where  it  glides,  the  sun,  the  breeze. 


And  then  he  thinks  he  knows 
The  hills  where  his  life  rose. 
And  the  sea  where  it  goes."  ^^ 

Of  course  Whittier  was  a  Mystic,  and  I  need 
only  refer  to  his  wonderful  poem,  "The  Meet- 
ing"; but  you  might  overlook  his  neighbor  in 
Salem,  who  is  less  well  known  than  he  ought 
to  be,  and  who  wrote  some  of  the  most  beauti- 

"  Poems,  by  Matthew  Arnold,  Vol.  II,  pp.  124-125. 


174     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

ful  sonnets  in  our  language,  one  of  which, 
called  "The  Presence,"  is  distinctly  mystical. 
I  mean  Jones  Very. 

Our  own  Lowell  touches  his  deepest  note 
when  he  speaks  of  the  themes  which  occupy 
Eckhart,  Tauler  and  Suso.  You  may  remember 
(and  I  think  he  has  nothing  more  beautiful) 
these  lines  from  *'The  Cathedral": 

"No  man  can  think  nor  in  himself  perceive. 
Sometimes  at  waking,  in  the  street  sometimes. 
Or  on  the  hillside,  always  unforewarned, 
A  grace  of  being,  finer  than  himself, 
That  beckons  and  is  gone, — a  larger  life 
Upon  his  own  impinging,  with  swift  glimpse 
Of  spacious  circles  luminous  with  mind, 
To  which  the  ethereal  substance  of  his  own 
Seems  but  gross  cloud  to  make  that  visible, 
Touched  to  a  sudden  glory  round  the  edge. 
Who  that  hath  known  these  visitations  fleet 
Would  strive  to  make  them  trite  and  ritual? 
I,  that  still  pray  at  morning  and  at  eve. 
Loving  those  roots  that  feed  us  from  the  past, 
And  prizing  more  than  Plato  things  I  learned 
At  that  best  academe,  a  mother's  knee. 
Thrice  in  my  life  perhaps  have  truly  prayed. 
Thrice  stirred  below  my  conscious  self,  have  felt 
That  perfect  disenthrallment,  which  is  God."  ^^ 

"Lowell's  Poetical  Works,  Vol.  IV,  p.   52— The  Cathedral. 


Modern  Mysticism  175 

But  time  would  fail  me  to  tell  of  all  the  poets, 
great  and  small,  where  you  will  find,  in  our 
modern  language,  the  thoughts  of  the  old  Mys- 
tics. There  is  the  whole  Celtic  school  in  Eng- 
land and  Ireland — William  Sharpe,  who  is  Fi- 
ona MacLeod,  Yeats,  George  Russell  ("A. 
E."),  Coventry  Patmore,  William  Canton, 
and  Evelyn  Underhill.  But  I  cannot  leave  the 
poets  without  one  more  quotation,  this  time 
from  the  author  of  "The  Hound  of  Heaven"; 
if  you  know  it  already,  so  much  the  better: 

"O  world  invisible,  we  view  Thee, 
O  world  intangible,  we  touch  Thee, 
O  world  unknowable,  we  know  Thee, 
Inapprehensible,  we  clutch  Thee! 

"Does  the  fish  soar  to  find  the  ocean, 
The  eagle  plunge  to  find  the  air — 
That  we  ask  of  the  stars  in  motion 
If  they  have  rumor  of  Thee  there? 

"Not  where  the  wheeling  systems  darken 
And  our  benumbed  conceiving  soars! — 
The  drift  of  pinions,  would  we  hearken, 
Beats  at  our  own  clay-shuttered  doors. 

"The  angels  keep  their  ancient  places : 
Turn  but  a  stone,  and  start  a  wing! 
'Tis  ye,  'tis  your  estranged  faces, 
That  miss  the  many-splendored  thing. 


176     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

"But  (when  so  sad  thou  canst  not  sadder) 
Cry ; — and  upon  thy  so  sore  loss 
Shall  shine  the  traffic  of  Jacob's  ladder 
Pitched  betwixt  Heaven  and  Charing  Cross. 

"Yea,  in  the  night,  my  Soul,  my  daughter. 
Cry, — clinging  Heaven  by  the  hems; 
And  lo,  Christ  walking  on  the  water, 
Not  of  Gennesareth,  but  Thames."  2* 

Turning  from  individuals  to  certain  move- 
ments of  modern  times  we  may  trace,  I  think, 
the  influence  of  the  principles  upon  which  Mys- 
ticism is  based,  even  if  some  of  the  results  are 
unmystical,  strange  and  even  shocking.  If 
Mysticism  is  the  use  of  the  whole  man,  includ- 
ing the  sub-conscious  self,  then  in  how  many 
ways,  some  true  and  helpful,  many  silly  and 
fantastic,  is  Mysticism  rife  to-day! 

In  the  field  of  education  and  moral  reform 
we  have  within  a  generation  the  wonderful  de- 
velopment of  the  psychology  of  the  child  mind 
and  the  return  to  and  dependence  upon  the 
power  of  suggestion.-^  The  talking  to  the 
baby  as  it  goes  to  sleep,  the  insistence  on  the 
value  of  all  the  surroundings  of  a  child's  life, 

**  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  Within   You,  Francis  Thomp- 
son, Poems,  Vol.  II,  p.  226. 
"  Hart :    Preventive  Treatment,  p.  374. 


Modern  Mysticism  177 

the  sounds  and  sights,  the  tempers  and  ideals, 
the  discovery  in  after  years  of  some  long  for- 
gotten fear  or  degradation,  as  the  poor  man 
comes  to  be  treated, — all  are  showing  us  how 
large  our  little  life  is.  More  and  more  you  will 
find  stress  being  laid  on  what  Miinsterberg 
distinguishes  from  psychical  therapy,  calling  it 
psychical  hygiene.  If  you  will  read  the  works 
of  Waldstein  and  Quackenbos  and  Mason  you 
will  see  how  this  psychical  education,  both  men- 
tal and  moral,  is  being  carried  on.  In  the  realm 
of  the  purely  physical,  the  power  of  suggestion, 
or  what  is  called  mind  over  matter,  a  power 
which  has  always  been  used,  is  now  coming  to 
be  studied  and  used  as  never  before.  The  liter- 
ature is  enormous. 

One  of  the  earliest,  and  still  the  classical 
book  on  the  subject,  is  Feuchtersleben's  "The 
Dietetics  of  the  Soul."  This  goes  back  to 
about  1840.  At  the  same  time  was  living  in 
this  country  Phineas  P.  Quimby,  about  whom 
Horatio  Dresser  has  written  a  book  called 
"Health  and  the  Inner  Life."  Quimby  is  the 
source  of  all  Mrs.  Eddy's  teachings.  Neither 
of  them,  however,  knew  that  whatever  of  truth 
was  in  their  system  was  founded  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  Mysticism,  the  use  of  the  sub-con- 


178     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

scious  self.  But  whereas  Mysticism  uses  it  as 
a  means  of  reaching  God,  or  rather  as  an  ave- 
nue of  approach  for  God  to  reach  us,  the  Chris- 
tian Scientist  uses  it  for  the  purely  selfish  pur- 
pose of  relieving  a  headache  or  curing  consti- 
pation or  gently  ousting  a  cancer  by  saying  it 
isn't  there.  It  is  not  Mysticism,  therefore,  but 
that  debased  form  of  it  which  we  call  Magic. 
It  is  a  matter  of  credulity  and  incantation,  and 
is  a  fine  example  of  what  the  sub-conscious  self 
can  be  led  into  when  entirely  unregulated  by 
the  reason.  It  is  not  known  whether  that 
strange  woman  who  said  she  discovered  Chris- 
tian Science  ever  studied  to  reduce  her  founda- 
tion principles  to  the  form  of  a  syllogism.  "It 
is  presumed  not,  for  otherwise  their  intense, 
monumental  and  aggressive  absurdity  would 
have  become  as  apparent  to  her  as  it  is  to 
others.  Let  us  see  how  they  look  in  a  syllo- 
gism: 

"  'Matter  has  no  existence.  Our  bodies  are 
composed  of  Matter.  Therefore  our  bodies 
have  no  existence  and  disease  cannot  exist  in 
a  non-existent  body.'  "  ^^ 

But  this  is  waste  of  time.  My  point  is  that 
Christian  Science  is  a  reversion  to  a  type  of 

*•  Hudson:    The  Law  of  Psychic  Phenomena,  p.  157. 


Modern  Mysticism  179 

Mysticism.  There  are  many  other  symptoms 
of  more  sensible  uses  of  the  power  which  Mys- 
ticism holds  over  the  body,  all  the  way  from 
those  queer  creatures  who  are  publishing  books 
called  "Volo,"  and  "The  Will  to  be  Well,"  and 
''Just  How  to  Wake  the  Solar  Plexus."  Others 
give  us  directions  how,  by  concentration,  we 
may  acquire  large  wealth  or  draw  to  us  just 
the  wife  we  want  or  need.  Magic,  all  of  it. 
But  more  serious  are  the  movements  called 
New  Thought,  Mental  Healing,  all  the  way  up 
to  the  Emmanuel  Movement.  Volumes  might 
be  written,  as  many  have  been  written,  all  with 
accounts  demonstrating  the  power  of  the  sub- 
jective self,  through  suggestion,  over  the  body, 
its  power  of  modifying  function  and  tissue, 
increasing  or  decreasing  the  circulation  of  the 
blood,  and  actually  healing  many  diseases.  It 
is  a  sign  of  the  modern  Mysticism.  And  then 
as  to  the  sphere  of  religion  in  modern  Chris- 
tianity, the  evidences  are  all  about  us.  Every 
one  of  these  movements  I  have  spoken  of  has 
a  tendency  to  become  distinctly  religious,  if 
not  Christian.  Beginning  in  revolt  against  the 
church,  they  are  steadily  returning  to  Christ. 
Christian  Science  has  changed  from  a  dose  to 
a  dogma,  from  a  cure  to  a  church.    All  over 


i8o     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

this  country  and  in  England  little  groups  of 
people  are  gathering  together  to  seek  God  for 
themselves  through  the  Mystic  Way,  and  are 
finding  him,  not  only  in  sporadic  outbreaks  of 
Buddhism  and  Bahaism,  in  bits  of  Oriental 
pantheism  like  Mr.  Bjerregaard's,  but  in  high- 
er, truer  ways  men  as  well  as  women  are  meet- 
ing in  ever  larger  groups  to  utilize  the  powers 
of  this  subliminal  self.  These  groups  bear 
many  names  and  some  are  nameless,  but  the 
purpose  is  the  same  that  drove  the  anchorite 
to  his  cell  and  the  Quaker  to  his  meeting,  while 
the  methods  are  identical  with  those  of  the  old- 
er Mystics  whose  way  we  have  traced.  The 
books  of  devotion  written  of  late  are  almost  all 
distinctly  mystical.  Such  books  of  enormous 
popularity  are  Annie  Payson  Call's  "Power 
Through  Repose,"  and  Ralph  Waldo  Trine's 
"In  Tune  with  the  Infinite."  What  could  be 
more  mystical  than  this  from  the  heart  of  the 
latter's  book:  "The  great  central  fact  in  hu- 
man life,  in  your  life  and  in  mine,  is  the  com- 
ing into  a  conscious  vital  realization  of  our  one- 
ness with  this  Infinite  Life,  and  the  opening  of 
ourselves  fully  to  this  divine  inflow."  And 
remember,  please,  that  this  is  not  any  closet 
doctrine,  but  that  the  book  has  sold  into  the 


Modern  Mysticism  i8i 

hundred  thousands,  and  is  read  by  perhaps  a 
million  people  to-day.  They  like  it  because  it 
touches,  in  a  plain  and  homely  and  modern 
way,  the  mystic  sense  which  we  all  have  and 
which  has  been  hungry  for  so  long.  The  num- 
ber of  books  on  Intercessory  Prayer  and  Medi- 
tation, the  number  of  reprints  of  the  works  of 
the  older  Mystics,  are  all  signs  of  the  new  in- 
terest in  Mysticism  of  which  I  am  speaking. 
I  suppose  none  of  us  realize  how  hungry  people 
are  to-day  for  this  kind  of  teaching.  T  am 
sure  we  do  not  realize  how  very  largely  it  is 
being  satisfied.  It  seems  to  me  it  is  the  duty  of 
the  Church  to  speak  to  these  people,  in  the 
name  of  God,  to  * 'suggest"  God  to  the  sub- 
liminal self,  and  so  develop  a  new  and  a  better, 
because  a  more  clearly  understood  and  more 
scientifically  controlled,  Christian  Mysticism. 
How  the  Church  is  attempting  to  do  this  I 
hope  to  show  in  my  next  and  last  lecture.  The 
Church  is  trying  in  various  ways,  both  to  voice 
and  to  satisfy  this  growing  need.  I  have  shown, 
I  hope,  how  universal  and  how  growing  it  is. 
It  must  Interest  us  to  see  how  we  are  meeting 
it,  and  besides,  the  Church  has  much  to  learn 
from  this  movement  if  it  would  approach  it 
sympathetically.     It  would  gain  as  much  as  it 


i82     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

gave.  It  would  gain  a  deeper  sense  of  the  real- 
ity of  spiritual  things,  of  a  communion  with 
God  through  real  prayer,  and  of  the  power  of 
intercessory  prayer  which  these  aberrant  Mys- 
tics are  using  magnificently. 

We  who  believe  in  a  Spirit  whose  comings 
and  goings  we  cannot  tell,  ought  to  hold  our- 
selves open  to  his  breathings,  come  they  whence 
they  may. 

SUGGESTED  READING 

VON  Hartman:  The  Unconscious. 

Fichte:  The  Way  Towards  the  Blessed  Life. 

Eucken  and  Bergson  passim 

William  Blake  :  Poems. 

William  Wordsworth  :  Poems. 

Robert  Browning:  Poems. 

Trine  :  In  Tune  with  the  Infinite. 

Dresser:  The  Power  of  Silence. 

Brackett  :  The  Technique  of  Rest. 

Call:  Power  Through  Repose. 

Wood  :  Ideal  Suggestion, 


VI 

PRACTICAL  MYSTICISM 

I  HAVE  failed  utterly  if  I  have  not  made  it 
clear  that  Mysticism  is  not  a  curious  by-path 
which  the  student  of  history  need  not  tread, 
but  a  constantly  recurring  and  revivifying 
force  in  the  history  of  our  religion.  I  have 
failed  if  I  have  not  made  you  see  that  the  great 
Mystics  were  not  psychic  freaks  but  only  ex- 
treme examples  of  that  life  hid  with  Christ  in 
God  which  is  open,  in  greater  or  less  degree,  to 
every  child  of  God. 

If  I  have  not  failed,  then  you  must  agree 
with  what  I  said  in  closing  my  last  lecture,  that 
the  Christian  Church  has  much  to  learn  from 
Mysticism,  and  should  study  it  carefully  with 
a  view  to  its  practice,  to  hold  itself  open  to  its 
influences,  come  they  whence  they  may. 

The  theory  of  Mysticism  is  before  us.  If  I 
have  not  made  tJiaf  clear,  that  does  not  mean 
that  nobody  can.  But  \\hat  I  most  want  to 
183 


184     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

show  is  that  when  you  do  really  understand 
Mysticism,  you  will  find  it  very  hard  not  to 
practise  it.  And  so  I  call  this  last  lecture 
Practical  Mysticism,  and  ask  you  to  see  with 
me  how  some  men  are  practising  it  and  offer- 
ing opportunities  for  others  to  practise  it,  and 
then  to  close  with  some  more  intimate  sugges- 
tions. 

I  want  to  speak  first  of  certain  exhibitions  of 
the  Mystic  spirit  in  the  worship  and  work  of 
the  Church  to-day.  I  pass  by  the  Emmanuel 
Movement  and  the  many  Healing  Missions,  be- 
cause I  have  already  mentioned  them  and  be- 
cause, however  much  I  am  in  sympathy  with 
them,  their  purpose  is  narrower  than  my 
theme,  and  they  deal  almost  exclusively  with 
the  abnormal.  The  wreckage  which  crowds 
their  clinics  is  thrown  up  from  the  troubled  sea 
of  our  modern  life  and  needs  special  and  ex- 
pert treatment.  It  is  only  a  symptom  of  a  con- 
dition in  which  we  all  find  ourselves.  The 
world  is  restless  and  the  revival  of  interest  in 
Mysticism  shows  that  it  is  trying  to  reach  some 
center  which  is  calm.  Eucken  voices  this  need 
very  clearly  when  he  says : 

*'  *It  is  not  only  at  particular  points  that 
civilization  does  not  correspond  to  the  demands 


Practical  Mysticism  185 

of  spiritual  life,  but  that  civilization,  as  a 
whole,  is  in  many  ways  in  conflict  with  those 
demands.  We  feel,  with  increasing  distress, 
the  wide  interval  between  the  varied  and  im- 
portant work  to  be  done  at  the  circumference 
of  life  and  the  complete  emptiness  at  the  cen- 
tre. When  we  take  an  inside  view  of  life  we 
find  that  a  life  of  mere  bustling  routine  pre- 
ponderates, that  men  struggle  and  boast  and 
strive  to  outdo  one  another,  that  unlimited  am- 
bition and  vanity  are  characteristic  of  indi- 
viduals, that  they  are  always  running  to  and 
fro,  and  pressing  forward,  or  feverishly  ex- 
ercising all  their  powers.  But  throughout  it 
all  we  come  upon  nothing  that  gives  any  real 
value  to  life,  and  nothing  spiritually  elevating. 
Hence  we  do  not  find  any  meaning  and  value 
in  life,  but  in  the  end  a  simple  huge  show  in 
which  culture  is  reduced  to  a  burlesque.  Any 
one  who  thinks  it  all  over  and  reflects  upon  the 
difference  between  the  enormous  labor  which 
has  been  expended  and  the  accompanying  gain 
to  the  essentials  of  life  must  either  be  driven 
to  complete  negation  and  despair,  or  must  seek 
new  ways  of  guaranteeing  a  value  to  life  and 
liberating  men  from  the  sway  of  the  petty  hu- 


186     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

man.     But  this  will  force  men  to  resume  the 
quest  for  inner  connections.'  "  ^ 

And  then  again  he  says  in  another  place: 
"If  this  is  really  the  case,  it  can  be  easily 
understood  how  men  grow  tired  and  weary  of 
all  the  rush  and  bustle,  which  is  so  confused 
and  yet  in  the  end  so  empty,  how  this  feeling 
of  weariness  spreads  and  produces  a  longing 
for  more  persistence,  more  peace  and  repose 
in  life.  It  is  a  remarkable  feature  of  the  pres- 
ent day  that  the  old  mysticism  is  regaining  its 
power  of  attraction,  and  that  the  Indian  re- 
ligions, which  release  men  from  the  cares  and 
troubles  of  time,  are  gaining  many  adherents 
also  in  the  West.  Is  not  this  to  be  connected 
with  the  change  in  vital  feeling  which  we  have 
described?"  ^ 

This  reaching  out  for  more  peace  and  re- 
pose in  life  is  evident  in  many  directions.  If 
the  rush  and  hurry  in  these  days,  which  sweeps 
us  along  breathlessly  either  with  or  against  our 
will,  takes  its  toll  in  physical  or  nervous  or 
mental  exhaustion,  then  we  turn  to  the  bless- 
ings offered  by  the  noble  men  and  women  who 
teach  us  how  to  be  calm,  to  re-create,  to  change 

*  Quoted  in  Hermann :    Eucken  and  Bergson,  pp.  33-34. 

*  Eucken  :    The  Life  of  the  Spiril,  pp.  158-159. 


Practical  Mysticism  187 

the  current  of  our  thoughts,  and  so  the  cHnics 
of  the  workers  in  the  Emmanuel  Movement, 
the  New  Thought  and  countless  variations  of 
these  are  crowded.  To  those  who  can  stultify 
their  intellect  even  Christian  Science  brings 
its  blessing  of  calm  and  cheerfulness.  But 
widespread  as  is  this  nervous  exhaustion,  this 
mental  strain,  and  widespread  as  are  its  ef- 
fects in  the  life  of  the  individual,  it  is  as  I 
said,  only  a  symptom,  and  a  side  issue.  Most 
men  are  healthy  in  body  and  mind,  and  the 
over-emphasis  on  the  abnormalities  have  made 
many  feel  that  the  cure  must  be  as  peculiar  as 
the  disease.  But  the  cure  is  based  on  the 
root  principle  of  Mysticism  and  uses  its  very 
methods.  It  is  an  unconscious  plagiarism, 
very  interesting  to  trace.  And  we  are  studying 
the  larger  issues  and  uses,  those  which  belong 
to  all  men  and  which  we  feel  are  needed  by 
all  men.  For  there  is  in  us  all  the  need  of  God, 
and  these  days  of  haste  and  unrest  have  had 
the  same  effect  on  the  spiritual  life  as  they 
have  had  upon  the  nervous  system.  They  have 
given  us  no  time  to  think  of  God,  to  commune 
with  him  in  prayer,  to  be  quiet  and  know.  The 
life  of  the  Spirit  has  been  dwindling,  and  men 
and  women  are  beginning  to  feel  a  loss :  a  loss 


1 88    The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

not  to  be  supplied  by  any  amount  of  strenuous 
social  service,  nor  even  by  the  ordinary  method 
of  Church-going. 

And  so  there  has  arisen  alongside  of  the  ef- 
forts to  provide  help  for  the  nervously  weak- 
ened and  the  mentally  unbalanced,  a  move- 
ment, as  widespread  as  the  need,  to  provide 
help  for  the  spiritually  stunted,  the  religiously 
restless,  the  seekers  for  reality  in  their  rela- 
tion to  God,  the  people  who  want  not  only  to 
know  about,  but  to  feel  God.  As  we  have 
seen  from  the  beginning  of  these  studies,  this 
longing  is  the  basis  of  Mysticism.  Here  to- 
day, in  a  time  apparently  so  unfavorable,  we 
find  an  intense  and  growing  feeling  for  God, 
which  is  yet  the  outgrowth  of  and  the  re-action 
from  this  very  period  of  devotion  to  material 
things.  In  response  to  this,  many  have  begun, 
in  various  ways,  to  guide  this  longing  aright 
and  to  satisfy  it.  Here  again  the  methods  used, 
while  various,  are  just  those  of  the  old  Mys- 
tics. Once  more,  and  for  the  last  time,  I  call 
your  attention  to  them. 

One  of  the  leaders  in  this  movement  is  the 
Rev.  Cyril  Hepher  of  Newcastle-on-Tyne.  A 
few  years  ago  I  met  him  at  the  house  of  the 
Dean  of  the  Cathedral  in  Boston,  and  heard 


Practical  Mysticism  189 

him  tell  of  his  experience  in  conducting  Mis- 
sions of  Help  in  New  Zealand  and  in  Canada. 
The  next  Sunday  he  preached  a  remarkable 
sermon  in  the  Cathedral  from  the  text,  "There 
was  silence  and  I  heard  a  voice."  Since  then 
Mr.  Hepher  had  published  his  experiences  and 
his  sermon  in  a  volume  called  "The  Fellowship 
of  Silence,"  from  which  I  am  permitted  to 
quote : 

"Man  is  not  brought  to  his  highest  attain- 
ment when  he  has  won  mental  concentration, 
when  he  has  forgotten  the  existence  of  his  body 
in  the  interest  of  his  brain;  he  has  only  half 
his  lesson  when  he  stands  there ;  there  is  a  hard 
space  still  to  cover — where  the  intellect  itself 
comes  to  quiescence,  comes  to  silence,  and  an- 
other capacity  in  man's  nature,  a  capacity  for 
a  yet  higher'  form  of  consciousness  than  the 
intellectual,  begins  to  appear.  When  a  man 
has  fastened  his  whole  being  upon  his  spiritual 
development,  when  he  would  set  free  the  very 
highest  power  latent  within  the  soul  of  man, 
he  must  learn  to  bring  the  busy,  thinking  brain 
to  a  halt ;  he  must  learn  how  to  still  the  intel- 
lect for  the  sake  of  the  spirit,  even  as  on  a 
lower  plane  he  had  to  learn  how  to  still  his 


igo    The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

physical  organism  for  the  sake  of  the  intel- 
lectual." 

"There  are  two  great  forms  in  which  this 
consciousness  can  be  practised.  The  first  is  in 
secret  meditation.  Now,  there  are  thousands 
of  people  in  the  new  world  who  are  crying  out 
for  meditation,  who  are  absolutely  weary  of  a 
religion  which  cannot  give  them  the  power  of 
an  immediate  contact  with  the  Unseen,  and 
who  are  turning  away  their  interest  to  strange 
practices, — to  New  Thought,  to  Christian 
Science,  to  Theosophy,  and  what  not, — as 
though  that  holy  practice  of  meditation  was  a 
thing  unknown  within  the  Church  of  God.  She 
is  the  Mother  of  meditation ;  but  there  are  very 
few  of  her  children  who  will  take  the  time  to 
practise  it;  there  are  few  but  would  say  that 
the  claim  of  one  half-hour  a  day  of  silent  medi- 
tation in  the  Presence  of  God  is  an  absurd 
claim — even  for  the  busiest  man." 

"But  there  is  yet  another  way,  and  you  are 
practising  it  here: — and  right  glad  am  I  to 
stand  in  this  pulpit  this  morning  and  speak  to 
you  who  are  finding  this  other  way — of  medita- 
tion in  fellowship.  I  wish  I  could  take  you 
with  me  to  a  little  Church  in  New  Zealand, 
where  about  two  years  ago  I  first  experienced 


Practical  Mysticism  191 

the  meditation  in  fellowship: — a  little  white 
Church,  lying  in  a  circle  of  pines  and  cy- 
presses:— the  September  afternoon  was  draw- 
ing on  and  the  dusk  was  settling  over  the  land, 
as  we  passed  into  the  silent  Church,  a  little 
group; — no  priest  at  the  altar,  no  minister  in 
the  pulpit,  no  student  from  any  school, — all 
was  emptiness  save  for  the  Great  Presence, 
which  soon  we  perceived.  No  one  spoke,  there 
WTre  no  words  of  preparation:  we  entered,  we 
knelt,  we  were  still — and  our  souls  began  to  be 
united  with  a  new  and  strange  sense  of  human 
fellowship  in  that  silence;  and  out  of  that  con- 
sciousness there  grew  a  deeper  sense — the 
sense  of  a  Divine  Presence;  and  the  work  of 
prayer,  ever  hard,  became  easy.  Someone  was 
there,  a  mighty  One — unseen,  yet  there.  The 
half-hour  sped  away,  and  in  all  one  little  word 
and  one  tiny  prayer  were  the  only  sounds  that 
broke  the  stillness;  and  when  at  last  w-e  rose 
and  passed  out  into  the  evening  light  we  had 
been  nearer  to  God  than  ever  I,  for  one,  had 
been  before  in  all  my  life.  We  had  found  the 
strange  and  mystic  power  of  the  fellowship 
of  silence.  And  that  you  are  practising  here, 
and  it  is  a  sacred  privilege.  Once  know^n,  you 
will  never  lose  a  day  without  it.     It  will  en- 


192     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

large  itself,  and  it  will  draw  to  its  circle  many 
souls ;  and  there  will  be  found  here,  as  now  in 
many  other  places  in  the  world,  groups  of  men 
who  are  learning  to  hear  God's  voice  in  that 
exquisite  and  holy  silence. 

''Men  and  women  of  Boston,  I  do  not  know 
anything  concerning  conditions  of  Church  life 
in  America,  but  I  know  something  of  them  in 
England  and  in  New  Zealand  and  in  Canada, 
and  I  know  this:  that  wherever  I  have  been  I 
have  found  that  men  are  growing  dissatisfied 
with  our  Church  service.  They  are  asking  for 
some  greater  measure  of  spiritual  depth, — that 
when  we  assemble  for  holy  worship  we  may 
with  more  vividness  enter  into  the  Presence 
and  touch  God.  It  may  be  that  my  words  fall 
on  some  ears  that  are  responsive.  There  are 
plenty  of  people  who  are  turning  away  from 
the  Church : — why  ?  They  tell  us  that  they  fail 
to  find  a  sufficient  depth  of  spiritual  reality  in 
our  public  worship.  We  believe  that  the  res- 
toration of  holy  silence  into  our  worship  will 
be  gain  for  the  whole  people.  Of  this  I  am 
certain: — there  is  not  a  man  amongst  us  who 
will  not  gain  if  he  can  follow,  even  in  part,  the 
words  of  the  Psalmist, — to  he  silent  unto  God." 

He  speaks  again  of  his  New  Zealand  expe- 


Practical  Mysticism  193 

riences  in  an  article  in  The  Commonwealth. 
In  a  little  church  were  held  meetings  with  a 
group  of  Friends  (Quakers)  and  Theosophists. 
He  thus  describes  what  happened : 

"We  knelt  without  a  word;  presently  some 
rose  from  their  knees  and  sat  down.  We  were 
but  a  handful.  There  was  no  sound  of  vocal 
prayer.  No  leader  at  faldstool,  or  altar,  but 
'Meeting'  had  begun.  I  cannot  put  into  words 
what  happened,  but  some  aspects  of  the  experi- 
ence T  must  try  to  express.  First  there  came 
very  quietly  the  sense  of  a  Presence.  The 
work  of  prayer  grew  strangely  easy.  We  were 
not  resolutely  fixing  our  thoughts  upon  a 
friend  in  a  far  country;  we  were  listening  to 
One  Who  was  there  in  the  church — speak- 
ing. The  still  air  seemed  to  vibrate  with  this 
Presence  that  could  be  felt.  God  was  speaking 
to  us,  not  in  words,  or  voices,  but  in  that  speech 
which  does  not  need  to  be  uttered,  yet  if  I  may 
say  so  bold  a  thing,  it  was  not  what  He  was 
saying  that  mattered  so  much,  as  that  He  was 
there  and  we  with  Him.    That  was  enough. 

''Then,  again,  one  perception  that  grew  as 
the  minutes  slipped  by  unnoticed  was  the  sense 
of  fellowship.  We  in  that  church  were  no 
longer  isolated  individuals.     It  was  unques- 


194     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

tionably  a  corporate  act  in  which  we  were  en- 
gaged, or  rather  a  corporate  experience  that 
had  come  to  us. 

"Afterwards  I  came  to  understand  that  this 
manner  of  prayer  depends  on  fellowship  of 
mind  and  creates  what  it  depends  on.  The 
Quakers  end  their  meeting  by  shaking  hands 
in  silence.  The  symbol  of  fellowship  cannot 
be  repressed.  If  their  experiences  are  like  ours 
at  this  meeting  I  can  perfectly  understand  the 
significance  they  set  on  their  simple  sacrament 
of  friendship.  They  enter  their  meeting  too 
in  the  spirit  of  unanimity.  One  idea  is  domi- 
nant in  every  mind :  that  of  waiting  upon  God, 
waiting  for  the  moving  of  the  Spirit.  .  .  . 

"As  I  try  in  my  mind  to  weigh  the  experi- 
ence, which  I  have  told  very  inadequately,  but 
at  least  without  conscious  exaggeration,  or 
over-statement,  what  shall  I  say  of  it?  It  was 
to  me  a  profoundly  new  experience,  dififerent 
in  kind  from  other  times  of  realization  of  the 
Presence,  in  that  it  was,  as  I  think,  the  psychic 
approach  to  the  spiritual  world.  Those  who 
make  excursions  into  the  psychic  in  other  in- 
terests than  the  direct  approach  to  God,  spirit- 
ualists, for  example,  use  methods  very  like 
Quaker  methods.    They  use  the  association  in 


Practical  Mysticism  195 

motionless  silence,  and  they  assert  that  where 
there  is  lacking  unanimity  of  mind  they  have 
no  success;  a  single  person  who  resists  the 
common  desire  of  the  rest  is  sufficient  to  pre- 
vent any  advance.  The  seance  is  a  Quaker 
meeting  put  to  illegitimate  uses;  but  they  are 
alike  in  their  use  of  the  psychic  atmosphere 
which  is  created  in  silence  and  fellowship.  To 
many  the  word  psychic  is  a  sufficient  condem- 
nation. My  reply  is,  that  the  God  Who  made 
the  spiritual  made  also  the  psychic,  and  that 
there  can  be  no  function  or  capacity  of  our  na- 
ture which  is  not  for  holy  uses.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  the  secret  of  the  preacher's  influence  is 
often  enough  the  psychic  power  with  which  he 
is  endowed,  which  unconsciously  he  is  putting 
forth. 

"I  believe  our  Quiet  Meeting  to  have  been 
the  consecrated  use  of  latent  psychic  forces 
which  led  directly  and  deeply  to  the  spiritual, 
to  God  Himself. 

''A  third  reflection  suggests  to  me,  that  more 
use  of  silence  in  our  own  public  worship  would 
lift  it  to  a  higher  spiritual  level.  In  one  church 
in  the  North,  the  silence  after  the  Consecra- 
tion of  the  Blessed  Sacrament  at  the  Solemn 


196    The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

Eucharist,  though  but  a  bare  two  minutes,  is 
teaching  a  congregation  a  new  understanding 
of  adoration.  Since  it  began  to  be  observed, 
a  marked  growth  in  the  acceptance  of  the 
Eucharist  itself  has  been  observed  there.  But 
this  is  so  widely  advised  now  that  the  only 
marvel  is,  that  there  is  still  left  a  church  in  the 
land  where  the  superstition  now  holds,  that  the 
one  thing  at  all  cost  to  be  destroyed  in  choral 
services  is  silence." 

Much  of  the  same  sort  of  spirit  is  shown  in 
the  meetings  held  by  Dean  Rousmaniere  in  the 
Cathedral  Church  of  St.  Paul,  in  Boston.  The 
Class  in  Personal  Religion  emphasizes  the  ele- 
ment of  silence,  and  there  is  much  intercessory 
prayer.  He  calls  the  silence  "directed,"  for 
after  each  prayer  there  is  observed  such  a  mo- 
ment or  two  in  which  the  worshippers  are 
asked  to  hold  steadily  in  their  minds  the 
thought  in  the  prayer  which  has  happened  to 
be  the  most  real  expression  of  their  needs  or 
of  their  experience.  Those  who  enter  into  the 
spirit  of  these  meetings  know  their  power  to 
calm  and  comfort.  The  work  among  the 
Friends  at  the  Cathedral  is  another  attempt  to 
bring  the  Spirit,  which  among  them  needs  a 
little  more  formality  of  expression,  into  our 


Practical  Mysticism  197 

sacramental  system,  which  sometimes  loses 
the  spirit  in  the  form.  The  Quaker  has  a 
great  contribution  to  make  to  us,  and  we  should 
welcome  it,  especially  as  on  his  side  he  is  evi- 
dently coming  to  see  that  we  have  something 
to  offer  him ;  but  we  have  room  to  receive  him 
while  he  can  hardly  accommodate  us. 

There  is  another  work  of  the  same  sort,  but 
even  more  intense.  The  spirit  of  it  permeates 
the  whole  parish,  and  even  extends  far  beyond 
its  borders.  It  is  being  done  in  the  Church  of 
the  Comforter  in  Greenwich  Village  in  New 
York.  The  whole  atmosphere  is  saturated 
with  the  Mystic  spirit;  the  presence  of  God 
seems  to  brood  there,  and  the  smallest  detail 
of  the  parish  work  is  filled  with  the  sense  of  it. 
They  have  a  rescue  mission  for  men,  and  all 
the  paraphernalia  of  an  institutional  church, 
but  all  they  do  is  done  with  the  spirit,  which 
makes  some  of  our  social  work  seem  perfunc- 
tory and  irreligious,  as  some  of  it  is.  A  lay- 
man, Mr.  Ernest  C.  Hargrove,  began  the  Mis- 
sion some  years  ago  and  still  conducts,  once 
a  week,  a  simple  service  of  short  prayers  and 
long  silences,  giving  later  an  interpretative 
address.  One  of  his  courses  was  upon  "Dis- 
cipleship   as   a   Present   Day   Possibility,"   in 


igS     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

which  he  spoke  of  the  inner  life  as  a  "life  lived 
in  the  presence  of  God  and  in  union  with  God" ; 
of  the  acts  of  the  Inner  Life  and  of  the  means 
of  attaining  the  Inner  Consciousness,  such  as 
(following  closely,  you  see,  the  Mystic  Way) 
clearing  the  ground  and  purification  of  con- 
science and  heart;  Construction  and  the  Prac- 
tice of  Recollection  and  Detachment;  and  last- 
ly, Intimacy,  which  sounds  like  the  Mystic's 
Union. 

My  own  experience  has  served  to  show  me 
how  even  the  average  parishioner  will  respond 
to  any  effort  to  supply  this  need  of  quiet  and 
silence  in  worship. 

A  recent  writer  has  said:  ''Some  priests 
are  finding  out  and  teaching  their  people  to 
value  and  apprehend  the  power  of  active,  en- 
ergizing co-operative  silence  before  God.  I 
hope  that  slowly,  at  least,  the  principle  will 
be  generally  recognized.  But  the  principle  of 
'bright  and  hearty  services,'  with  much  glare 
of  light  and  crash  of  organ,  and  brief  manly 
heart  to  heart  talks,  is  stubbornly  rooted  in 
the  minds  of  many  priests  as  the  ideal  of  wor- 
ship and  corporate  devotion.  And  I  fear  it 
will  be  long  before  we  get  altogether  rid  of  the 
notion  that  from  beginning  to  end  of  a  serv- 


Practical  Mysticism  199 

ice,  clergy  and  congregation  must  be  continu- 
ously employed  in  saying  or  singing  something 
as  loudly  as  possible."  ^  So  deeply  rooted  is 
this  idea  in  the  minds  of  priests  and  people 
alike  that  very  few  care  or  dare  to  try  the  ex- 
periment of  introducing  periods  for  silent 
prayer  and  humble  listening  into  public  wor- 
ship. Should  it  be  tried  suddenly  we  know 
that  the  congregation  would  be  troubled  and 
think  that  the  minister  had  either  fainted  or 
was  inattentive  to  his  duty  and  wandering  in 
his  mind. 

But  the  congregation  to  whom  the  matter  is 
explained,  will  respond  at  once  and  see  the 
need  and  reasonableness  of  the  change.  This 
is  because  they  have  felt  the  need  in  their  own 
hearts  and  had  never  realized  that  the  public 
service  in  Church  could  supply  it.  The  quiet 
office  of  Holy  Communion,  at  some  early  hour, 
can  be  made  more  helpful  by  the  introduction 
after  the  Prayer  for  the  Church  Militant  and 
after  the  Consecration  of  the  ancient  Secre- 
tae,  giving  the  people  time  for  silence,  that 
they  may  realize  the  Divine  Presence  by  calm- 
ing their  inner  selves  and  fitting  them  to  draw 

•Lawrence  Enderwych. 


20O     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

nearer  to  that  Unitive  State  which  the  Sacra- 
ment symbolizes. 

And  in  ordinary  services,  in  many  ways,  this 
worship  of  the  silence  can  be  made  use  of. 
Hymns  may  be  heartily  sung  and  beautiful  an- 
thems listened  to,  but  these  should  lead  up  to 
a  few  words  of  direction  and  explanation  by 
the  leader,  and  then  prayers  should  be  made, 
chiefly  personal  and  intercessory,  or  for  larger, 
national  and  human  needs,  and  then  after  each 
petition,  silence  should  be  kept  for  a  space, 
that  all  may  concentrate  their  thoughts  and 
desires  on  the  subject  prayed  for.  The  atti- 
tude of  the  people  is  changed  from  languid 
inattention  to  a  familiar  form  of  words,  to  an 
intense  personal  co-operation  in  desiring  one 
thing  of  the  Lord.  This  sense  of  a  personal 
partaking  in  the  prayer,  brings  the  sense  of 
God's  presence  and  the  knowledge  that  we  are 
working  together  with  Him  for  the  good  of 
others,  and  sends  us  out  of  His  house  with  a 
look  of  joy  and  strength  on  our  faces,  seldom 
seen  after  the  more  formal  services  of  the  day. 

To  feel  ill  at  ease  in  a  service  of  silence  is  to 
argue  a  lack  of  acquaintance  with  God.  I  am 
only  afraid  of  pauses  in  a  conversation  when 
I  am  talking  to  a  stranger  and  feel  awkward 


Practical  Mysticism  201 

in  his  presence.  With  an  intimate  friend  I 
can  afford  to  be  silent. 

In  these  and  in  other  ways  of  which  I  could 
tell  you,  were  there  time,  1  think  you  will  see 
how  the  spirit  of  Mysticism  is  expressing  it- 
self in  the  religious  life  of  the  Church.  It  is 
all  very  free  and  simple.  It  seems  to  be  grow- 
ing. Certainly  none  who  have  tried  these 
things  will  give  them  up.  I  know  there  are 
some  who  would  like  to  begin. 

It  is  here  that  I  must  become  personal  and 
practical.  I  need  not  enlarge  upon  Eucken's 
words  with  which  I  began.  We  all  know  and 
deplore  the  restlessness  of  the  age.  Some  of 
us  feel  that  better  things  are  impending.  I 
feel  very  strongly  that  a  great  many  people 
are  waiting  to  be  shown  the  way  into  Mysti- 
cism as  the  remedy  for  what  we  deplore.  And 
just  now,  I  have  spoken  of  the  ways  some  are 
trying  to  meet  men's  needs.  But  there  are 
other  and  even  better  ways  than  these.  The 
need  of  God  is  a  personal  thing,  and  while 
crowds  and  co-operation  and  common  worship 
are  helps,  the  need  is  in  the  soul  and  must  be 
filled  there  in  utter  loneliness. 

Mysticism  brings  the  soul  face  to  face  with 
God,  which  is  what  the  soul  wants,    There  arc 


2oa     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

no  intermediaries,  nor  companionships.  So 
my  last  word  must  be  to  the  individual,  who- 
ever he  may  be.  I  have  tried  in  these  lectures 
to  make  it  plain  that  the  way  is  open  even  to 
the  average  normal  man.  I  have  presented  a 
sequence  of  the  various  steps  a  sample  of  the 
general  path  to  be  taken  by  the  man  who  wants 
God,  but  all  I  have  said  has  been  at  second 
hand,  with  much  reference  to  others,  and  many 
quotations.  I  would  not  leave  you  with  only 
this.  I  should  be  disappointed  if  I  had  only 
interested  you  in  the  theory.  My  motive  you 
know  from  the  beginning  has  been  practical, — 
that  of  the  missionary,  perhaps  even  of  the 
proselyter. 

We  must  remember  that  these  mystical  facts 
and  states  which  we  have  studied  are  only  au- 
thoritative for  those  who  have  them.  They 
are  not  like  mathematical  axioms  which  can 
be  handed  from  one  mind  to  another  and  com- 
mand acceptance  because  the  common  human 
reason  cannot  deny  them.  They  must  remain 
entirely  uninfluential  and  powerless  until  we 
experience  them  ourselves.  We  have  no  right 
to  accept  the  testimony  of  these  mystical  states 
from  any  Mystic  except  as  being  true  for  him. 
That  does  not  make  them  true  for  us. 


Practical  Mysticism  203 

What  we  must  do,  therefore,  if  we  can,  is 
to  set  ourselves  in  the  way,  to  try  to  use  the 
same  processes  by  which  others  have  succeeded 
in  attaining  their  desire,  to  try  to  be  the  kind 
of  men  they  were,  and  then  to  see  if  the  same 
reward  will  come  to  us.  If  it  does  we  know.* 
There  are  some  who  will  never  know,  some 
who  will  never  care  to  know,  for  I  do  not  mean 
to  say  that  all  men  should  be  Mystics,  or  that 
if  all  men  were,  that  the  Church  would  not  lose 
something.  As  the  world  of  thoughtful  men 
can  be  divided  into  only  two  classes,  the  Aris- 
totelians and  the  Platonists,  the  intellectualists 
and  the  intuitionists,  so  the  fullness  of  the 
Church's  life  requires  the  same  combination  of 
differing  qualities,  each  respecting  the  other, 
each  learning  from  the  other,  each  supplement- 
ing the  other's  defect.  Only  the  great  intel- 
lectual and  religious  geniuses  can  in  themselves 
combine  the  two — men  like  Augustine  and 
Eckhart  and  Phillips  Brooks. 

You  will  already  have  discovered  my  limita- 
tions and  know  on  which  side  I  must  be  classed, 
but  if  my  appeal  be  one-sided  I  myself  have 
told  you.  I  cannot  think  it  is  prejudice  which 
makes  me  feel  that  this  side  is  the  more  im- 

*  James :     Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  p.  422. 


204    The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

portant  to  be  emphasized  in  these  days.  Men 
and  women  want  to  know  God  in  their  hearts ; 
they  want  to  feel  Him  there  as  an  ever-present 
help  in  time  of  trouble,  not  to  be  able  to  prove 
Him  there  in  time  of  controversy.  As  I  un- 
derstand the  time,  men  are  not  controversial, 
not  sceptical,  but  they  are  hungry  for  God.  It 
behooves  us  to  be  leaders  of  men  in  this  their 
search  for  God,  and  to  be  true  leaders  we  must 
go  on  ahead  and  be  able  to  show  that  we  know 
the  way.  We  must  be  living  guides,  not  mere 
stationary  finger  posts.  To  be  such  as  this 
we  must  fit  ourselves.  The  way  is  not  easy, 
but  if  we  will  take  it  and  persevere  I  believe 
the  end  is  sure.  At  any  rate,  I  am  certain  the 
duty  rests  upon  us. 

I  have  often  wished  to  quote  these  words  of 
Professor  Royce,  written  a  good  many  years 
ago.  They  apply  to  religion  and  its  teachers  as 
well  as  to  philosophy  and  its  teachers.  He  is 
speaking  of  one  of  the  greatest  of  Mystics: 

"Eckhart  must  preach  with  the  understand- 
ing— ay,  but  with  the  spirit  also.  He  had  been 
early  trained  to  a  sense  of  the  importance  of 
learning,  but  once  more  these  so  precious  fruits 
of  contemplation  must  be  communicated  to 
others;  yes,  must  be  built  up  anew  in  every 


Practical  Mysticism  205 

hearer's  mind  as  the  actual  outcome,  as  the 
very  form  and  body  of  his  own  personal  and 
religious  life.  For  all  this  meant  the  one  great 
object — the  salvation  of  souls,  the  guidance  of 
the  perplexed,  the  portrayal  of  truth.  Such 
popular  translation  of  philosophy,  in  case  a 
man's  philosophy  means  to  him  in  any  sense 
the  mirror  of  human  life,  must  always  tend,  in 
the  man  who  thus  translates,  to  a  continual 
renewal  and  refreshment  of  his  own  most 
fundamental  thinking  itself.  The  technical 
weaver  of  philosophical  theories  may  or  may 
not  bear  in  mind  the  fact  that  had  it  not 
been  for  the  vital  perplexities  of  experience — 
the  immediate  issues  of  life — the  problems  of 
the  schools  would  never  have  come  into  ex- 
istence. Accordingly,  such  a  technical  student 
may  long  neglect  the  renewed  examination  of 
his  own  fundamental  principles  for  the  sake 
of  devoting  himself  to  the  development  of 
their  most  remote  theoretical  consequences. 
But  the  man  who  wants  to  make  his  philosophy 
immediately  interesting  to  the  serious-minded 
amongst  the  people  must  not  dwell  upon  those 
remoter  consequences  so  much  as  upon  the 
principles;  for  it  is  just  the  most  fundamental 
principle  of  life  that  the  unlearned  inquirer 


2o6    The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

desires  to  get.  People  naturally  begin  in  phi- 
losophy with  the  most  critical  and  tremendous 
of  its  issues.  But  if  you  are  to  translate  such 
fundamental  principles  into  the  speech  of  your 
hearer's  spiritual  experience,  if  you  are  to 
show  him  that  the  most  abstruse  truth  walks 
daily  beside  him,  well,  then,  daily  you  too  must 
experience  and  must  re-state  to  yourself  this 
abstrusely  spiritual  truth  that  lies  at  the  basis 
of  your  life  as  of  your  hearer's.  You  must 
continually  re-initiate  yourself  into  the  mys- 
teries of  your  own  philosophical  doctrine.  It 
must  become  and  remain  a  personal  as  well  as 
a  technical  matter  with  you."  ^  And  then  very 
lately  he  has  added  these  impressive  words: 

"Is  such  a  direct  touch  with  the  divine  possi- 
ble? The  mystics  of  all  ages  have  maintained 
that  it  is  possible.  Are  they  right?  To  an- 
swer this  question  adequately  would  be  to  solve 
the  religious  paradox.  It  would  be  to  show 
whether  and  how  the  individual,  even  in  his 
isolation,  'alone  with  the  divine,'  can  come  to 
be  nevertheless  in  unity  with  all  other  spirits, 
in  touch  with  all  that  lies  beneath  and  above 
himself,  and  with  all  that  constitutes  the  es- 
sence of  reality.     Perhaps  this  is  indeed  pos- 

'  Royce :    Studies  of  Good  and  Evil,  p.  266. 


Practical  Mysticism  207 

sible.  Unless  it  is  possible,  revelation,  as  we 
have  seen,  loses  precisely  its  most  intimate  sig- 
nificance, as  an  appeal  of  the  divine  spirit  di- 
rectly to  the  interior  light.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  all  the  mystics  confess  that,  if  this  is 
possible,  and  if  it  happens  in  their  own  cases, 
they  alone,  viewing  their  experience  merely 
as  an  individual  experience,  know  not  how  it 
happens,  but  must  accept  their  revelation  as 
an  insight  without  knowing  in  w^hat  precise 
sense  it  is  insight. 

"It  follows  that  individual  experience  re- 
mains a  source  of  religious  insight  as  indis- 
pensable and  as  fundamental  as  it  is,  by  itself, 
inadequate  and  in  need  of  supplement.  Unless 
you  have  inwardly  felt  the  need  of  salvation 
and  have  learned  to  hunger  and  thirst  after 
spiritual  unity  and  self-possession,  all  the  rest 
of  religious  insight  is  to  you  a  sealed  book. 
And  unless,  in  moments  of  peace,  of  illumina- 
tion, of  hope,  of  devotion,  of  inw^ard  vision, 
you  have  seemed  to  feel  the  presence  of  your 
Deliverer,  unless  it  has  sometimes  seemed  to 
you  as  if  the  way  to  the  homeland  of  the  spirit 
were  opened  to  your  sight  by  a  revelation  as 
from  the  divine,  unless  this  privilege  has  been 
yours,  the  way  to  a  higher  growth  in  insight 


2o8    The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

will  be  slow  and  uncertain  to  you.  But  on 
the  other  hand,  no  one  who  remains  content 
with  his  merely  individual  experience  of  the 
presence  of  the  divine  and  of  his  deliverer, 
has  won  the  whole  of  any  true  insight.  For, 
as  a  fact,  we  are  all  members  one  of  another; 
and  I  can  have  no  insight  into  the  way  of  my 
salvation  unless  I  thereby  learn  of  the  way  of 
salvation  for  all  my  brethren.  And  there  is 
no  unity  of  the  spirit  unless  all  men  are  privi- 
leged to  enter  it  whenever  they  see  it  and  know 
it  and  love  it."  ^ 

This  is  preaching,  I  confess,  but  it  is  Royce's 
sermon  and  not  mine.  How  shall  we  practise 
it?  There  are  no  schools  for  teaching  Mysti- 
cism, as  there  are  schools  for  teaching  Mathe- 
matics and  Theology.  It  is  a  personal  and  very 
private  matter.  One  hesitates  to  speak  of  it  in 
public,  and  fears  the  immodesty  of  pretending 
to  know  enough  of  it  to  teach  it.  But  the  mis- 
sionary must  bear  his  testimony  and  be  pre- 
pared to  see  many  of  his  converts,  if  he  is  for- 
tunate enough  to  have  any,  go  far  beyond  him 
in  the  development  of  his  truth. 

I  said  in  my  first  lecture,  in  trying  to  make 
clear  what  we  were  going  to  think  about  to- 

•  Royce :    Sources  of  Religious  Insight,  pp.  31-34- 


Practical  Mysticism  209 

gether,  that  "a  Christian  Mystic  is  that  kind  of 
a  Christian  who  longs  for  and  who  believes 
he  can  have  an  experience  of  intimate  com- 
munion with  God,  through  Christ,  in  this  life. 
This  is  his  supreme  purpose."  Now  Mysti- 
cism is  founded  on  this  longing.  Of  course 
all  men  have  this  desire  in  some  degree.  1 
know  that,  and  have  said  it.  But  I  have  also 
said,  and  contend,  that  with  the  Mystic  this 
longing  is  much  more  intense  than  it  is  with 
the  Aristotelian.  Therefore  the  first  thing  for 
us  to  do  is  "to  seek  the  ground  of  our  hearts," 
to  look  into  ourselves  and  ask,  with  entire 
honesty  and  the  keenest  searching,  whether,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  we  do  so  desire  this  intimate 
heart  communion  with  God.  What  are  we 
aiming  at?  On  what  thoughts  do  our  minds 
naturally  rest?  What  is  the  supreme  purpose 
toward  which  our  efforts  as  well  as  our  aspira- 
tions definitely  turn?  There  will  be  nothing 
but  disappointment  until  these  questions  are  an- 
swered. No  one  can  be  a  Mystic  who  has  not 
this  ''single  intent,"  this  "blind  stretching  of 
the  soul,"  toward  God.  As  Walter  Hilton  says: 
''Ransack  thy  conscience  and  look  what  thy  will 
is,  for  therein  consisteth  the  whole  business."  "^ 

'  The  Scale  of  Perfection,  p.  151. 


2IO    The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

If  you  will  undertake  this  search,  let  me  beg 
you  to  make  it  thorough.  You  may  not  reach 
your  deepest  desire  at  first.  Other  wishes  may 
appear  superior  and  you  may  be  too  easily  dis- 
couraged and  too  entirel}/  acquiescent.  We  do 
not  all  know  what  we  really  want.  Like  phys- 
ical hunger,  the  want  is  so  diffused  that  we 
may  feel  the  emptiness  in  some  place  where  it 
is  not.  But  if  you  will  persist  in  your  search 
I  think  you  will  find,  most  of  you,  that  the  real 
answer  to  your  many  questions,  the  real  satis- 
faction of  your  many  fickle  wishes,  is  God. 
God  is  not  means,  but  end.  Too  often  Eck- 
hart's  words  are  true  of  us :  "Know  that  when 
you  seek  your  own  you  never  find  God  there 
till  you  seek  God  alone.  You  seek  something 
with  God  and  do  with  him  just  as  though  you 
made  him  a  candle  with  which  to  look  for 
something :  and  having  found  it  you  throw  the 
candle  away."  ^ 

If  you  find  this  desire  to  be  not  a  vague 
wish,  but  a  compelling  impulse,  then  I  call  your 
attention  to  the  second  part  of  my  definition. 
To  carry  out  this  ''will  to  know  God,"  I  said 
that  the  Mystic  believed  that  by  a  course  of 
training  he  could  so  develop  his  inmost  self — 

*  Quoted  in  Horce  Mystica,  p.  40. 


Practical  Mysticism  211 

call  it  what  you  will — that  his  whole  nature 
would  become  open  and  susceptible  to  God  in- 
creasingly. That  is,  Mysticism  is  an  Art  and 
has  its  way  of  self -development,  and  this  way 
is  open  to  all  who  want  God  enough  to  walk 
in  it  faithfully.  But  before  I  ask  you  to  take 
up  this  way,  I  want  to  suggest  that  you  begin 
at  this  point  to  read  the  writings  of  some  Mys- 
tic. You  will  be  able  to  meet  him  now  on  his 
own  ground,  ''the  ground  of  his  heart."  You 
are  both  after  the  same  thing.  You  will  be 
in  sympathy,  at  least,  with  his  purpose.  Let 
me  warn  you  however  that  such  reading  must 
be  persevered  in,  for  you  will  meet  much  at 
first  with  which  you  will  not  be  sympathetic; 
much  will  be  unintelligible  to  you,  and  much 
that  you  think  you  understand  will  be  alien  if 
not  repulsive.  This  makes  your  first  intro- 
duction to  Mystic  literature  hard.  But  you 
will  not  be  daunted  if  your  heart  is  fixed,  and 
when  once  you  "catch  the  idea"  the  reading 
becomes  easy  and  the  sympathy  grows. 

If  you  will  allow  me  to  suggest,  out  of  my 
own  experience,  I  think  you  will  find  your  path 
made  easier  if  you  read  such  a  book  as  Profes- 
sor Rufus  M.  Jones's  ''Social  Law  in  the  Spirit- 
ual   World,"    and    then,    a   good    deal    later, 


212    The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

Evelyn  Underhill's  fascinating  and  authorita- 
tive v^ork  called  '^Mysticism,"  w^hich  quotes 
and  elaborates  and  teaches  and  draws  you  to- 
ward the  subject  as  no  other  book  does.  But 
in  between,  and  principally,  you  should  read 
some  real  Mystic's  real  book, — ''Theologia 
Germanica"  is  good  to  begin  with.  There  is  a 
little  book  edited  by  Dr.  Inge,  selected  from 
the  German  Mystics,  called  'Xight,  Life  and 
Love,"  which  will  serve  as  an  introduction  to 
Eckhart  and  Tauler  and  Ruysbroek  and  Suso. 
Then  there  is  the  English  Mystic,  Walter  Hil- 
ton, whom  I  have  just  quoted,  with  his  "Scale 
(or  Ladder)  of  Perfection."  These  are  all 
sane,  very  little  ascetic,  and  not  in  the  least 
visionary.  I  dare  not  begin  to  tell  you  what 
to  read  after  these.  You  will  be  guided,  I  am 
sure,  and  find  what  is  best  for  you  in  the  multi- 
tude of  riches.  Those  whom  I  like  best  might 
not  appeal  to  you:  St.  Augustine's  Confes- 
sions, St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  and  St.  Catherine 
of  Siena;  Santa  Teresa  and  Molinos  of  Spain, 
Suso  and  Ruysbroek,  besides  Eckhart  and  Tau- 
ler, in  Germany;  and  that  wonderful  woman, 
Mother  Julian  of  Norwich,  who  will  surely 
grow  in  your  estimation  and  love  if  you  will 
give  her  the  chance.    At  any  rate,  I  conclude 


Practical  Mysticism  213 

this  advice  by  asking  you  to  read  Mysticism 
much  more  than  you  read  about  Mysticism. 
After  you  have  read  the  Mystics  themselves, 
the  books  about  them,  even  the  lectures  about" 
them,  will  seem  to  you  trite  and  tasteless. 

I  come  back  to  the  Mystic's  course  of  train- 
ing. What  are  the  means  he  uses?  We  have 
studied  them  in  the  second  lecture.  He  insists 
that  they  are  only  means.  His  purpose  is  so 
clear  and  intense  that  he  can  never  worship  his 
tools.  As  I  said,  he  cares  for  purity  of  heart 
only  that  by  it  he  may  see  God.  That  desire 
comes  first,  then  follows  Conversion.  We  can- 
not get  away  from  that.  It  may  not  be  fash- 
ionable, but  it  is  psychological  and  Biblical  and 
divine.  And  when  a  man  is  converted  he  re- 
pents and  reforms.  He  repudiates  his  sin  and 
disciplines  his  character. 

But  even  goodness  does  not  avail  by  itself. 
To  see  God  there  are  other  veils  than  sin  to  be 
removed.  And  so  we  come  to  the  fourth  and 
most  important  step  (for  the  Mystic) — Con- 
templation. This  is  where  we  must  lay  the 
emphasis  for  ourselves  and  for  others.  This 
is  where  practice  is  most  imperative  and  most 
useful     Many  repent  and  have  faith  but  few 


214    The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

reach  the  fruition  of  union  with  God,  because 
few  understand  the  necessity  of  Prayer,  of 
Quiet  and  Silence,  of  Recollection  and  Con- 
centration, and  few,  very  few,  care  to  give 
much  time  to  these  exercises,  which  take  much 
time  and  more  patience  and  trouble.  I  repeat, 
it  takes  time.  Darwin  watched  the  tendrils  of 
a  vine  for  years  to  gain  one  scientific  fact,  and 
studied  earthworms  month  after  month.  Is 
God  more  easily  come  at?  It  is  a  good  ques- 
tion to  ask  ourselves  whether,  in  our  search  for 
God,  we  have  given,  with  any  regularity,  even  a 
half  hour  a  day  to  Contemplation.  God  is 
worth  at  least  as  much  time  as  that. 

You  will  be  astonished,  when  you  seriously 
try,  to  find  how  long  it  does  take  you,  and  how 
hard  it  is,  to  become  perfectly  quiet  and  abso- 
lutely silent.  To  know  God,  to  commune  with 
God,  to  worship  God,  not  only  your  lips  but 
your  soul  must  be  silent.  Men  complain  of 
God's  silences  and  call  him  inscrutable,  but  I 
think,  the  reason  is  that  God  cannot  communi- 
cate with  them  because  they  never  give  him  a 
chance;  they  are  so  busy,  so  noisy,  so  inter- 
minably loquacious  themselves.  He  is  waiting 
for  a  decent  pause  in  the  conversation.     "Be 


Practical  Mysticism  215 

still  and  know  that  I  am  God."     "There  was 
silence  and  I  heard  a  voice."  ^ 

Do  I  end  abruptly  ?  1  know  that  I  ought  to 
say  more,  but  I  know  that  I  don't  know  any 
more.  It  would  not  be  honest  to  keep  on  talk- 
ing. Here  1  must  stop  and  be  content.  No, 
not  content,  but  compelled,  just  to  point  on- 
ward. 

The  third  and  last  stage  in  my  definition  of 
Mysticism  is  still  my  goal.  I  said,  *'He  per- 
severes until  he  accomplishes  his  purpose. 
God's  presence  within  him  becomes  the  su- 
preme reality  of  his  life.  He  attains  the  union 
with  God."  It  is  here,  at  the  end  of  our  com- 
mon search,  that  my  last  word  must  be  said. 
"The  Mystic  experience  is  not  the  fruit  of  con- 
scious endeavor  or  self  discipline  or  continued 
prayer  or  meditation.    These  may  fit  the  soul 

'  '"You  need  not  go  to  heaven  to  see  God,  or  to  regale  your- 
self with  God.  Nor  need  you  speak  loud,  as  if  He  were  far 
away.  Nor  need  you  cry  for  wings  like  a  dove  so  as  to  fly 
to  Him.  Settle  yourself  in  solitude,  and  you  will  come  upon 
God  in  yourself.  And  then  entreat  Him  as  your  Father,  and 
relate  to  Him  your  troubles.  Those  who  can  in  this  manner 
shut  themselves  up  in  the  little  heaven  of  their  own  hearts, 
where  He  dwells  Who  made  heaven  and  earth,  let  them  be 
sure  that  they  walk  in  the  most  excellent  way:  they  lay  their 
pipe  right  up  to  the  fountain." 


2i6     The  Theory  and  Practice  of  Mysticism 

for  the  gift,  but  when  it  comes  it  comes  from 
Another."  ^^  Humbly,  hopefully,  yes,  with  ab- 
solute assurance  I  await  that  Shewing. 

*'  Cobb :    Mysticism  and  the  Creed,  p.  xiii. 


MYSTICISM 

A  STUDY  IN  THE  NATURE  AND  DEVELOPMENT 
OF  MAN'S  SPIRITUAL  CONSCIOUSNESS 

By 
EVELYN  UNDERHILL 

This  remarkable  work  is  divided  into  two  sections — the 
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An  Appendix  contains  an  historical  sketch  of  European 
Mysticism,  and  there  is  a  very  complete  Bibliographj . 

One  Volume.    Cloth,  8vo,  net  $3.50 


Opinions  of  the  Press 

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"The  author  is  a  scholar  .  .  .  her  work  will  take  its 
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RELIGION 

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IN  MODERN  THOUGHT 

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CHARLES  GARDNER 

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DATE  DUE 


